195,990 research outputs found
Repeatable negotiation rules? only females show repeatable responses to partner removal in a brood-provisioning songbird
No full textTheoretical models indicate that the evolution of biparental care depends on how parents behaviourally negotiate their level of care in response to those of their partner and whether sexes and individuals consistently vary in their response (compensatory response). While the compensatory response has been widely investigated empirically, its repeatability has rarely been assessed. In this study, we used a reaction norm approach to investigate the repeatability of the compensatory offspring provisioning of a parent after temporary removal of its partner in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) across different breeding seasons and partners. We found that only females partially compensated for the short-term removal of the partner and their response was significantly repeatable across years while breeding with different partners. This study highlights the importance of considering among individual differences in negotiation rules to better understand the role of negotiation mechanisms in the evolution of parental care strategies
Mate desertion affects offspring survival, development and physiology in a songbird with multiple parental strategies
No full textAuthor Contributions
Alejandro Cantarero, Matteo Griggio, Jenny Q Ouyang, Andrea Pilastro and Davide Baldan conceived the ideas and designed the methodology; Alejandro Cantarero, Matteo Beccardi, Manuel Fuertes-Recuero, Matteo Schiavinato, Lia Zampa and Davide Baldan collected the data; Valentina Alaasam, Alejandro Corregidor-Castro and Alessandro Grapputo analysed the data; and Valentina Alaasam, Jenny Q Ouyang and Davide Baldan led the writing of the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.Sexual conflict affects the amount and duration of offspring care each parent invests, resulting in multiple parental care strategies sometimes coexisting within a single population. Understanding the persistence of multiple parental care strategies requires a precise estimate of the benefits and costs associated with parental decisions. Even though the benefits of brood desertion are well known, the reproductive costs of desertion (i.e., nestlings' physiological conditions and survival), are less explored.
We use rock sparrows, Petronia petronia, a species in which both uniparental and biparental care occur in the same population, to investigate the costs of brood desertion. Specifically, we continuously monitored breeding attempts to explore the behavioural mechanisms (desertion decision and compensatory responses) and the reproductive and physiological consequences (offspring corticosterone concentrations, oxidative stress, telomere attrition) of parental care strategies.
We show that male desertion was not related to the initial value of the brood (clutch size, brood size) but was associated with a reduction in the survival probability of the nestlings. Females caring alone increased their per capita feeding rate, partially compensating for the lack of male care. Nestlings deserted earlier also experienced higher oxidative stress and had higher corticosterone concentrations during the early stages of development, but these effects did not persist to fledging, and there were no differences in telomere attrition.
Our findings indicate combined reproductive and physiological costs associated with brood desertion. Considering these costs is essential to understand the evolution and persistence of polymorphic patterns of care.National Biodiversity Future CenterMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España)Università degli Studi di PadovaDepto. de FisiologíaFac. de VeterinariaTRUEpu
Dr. Duane M. Jackson, Morehouse College, July 2011
No full textThis video is a conversation with Dr. Duane M. Jackson. Dr. Jackson talks about his paper, "Recall and the Serial Position Effect: The Role of Primacy and Recency on Accounting Students' Performance." Jackie Daniel, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.
No full text"Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states.
By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement.
To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Dr. Glendon Swarthout
No full textHosted by Roger M. Busfield, MSU Assistant Professor of Speech and Theater, Meet the Author is designed to introduce a general audience to a contemporary author and their work through in-depth interviews. This episode features a conversation between Dr. Glendon Swarthout, prolific author and English professor at MSU, and assistant professors Sam S. Baskett and Theodore B. Strandness
Simulation of thermal plant optimization and hydraulic aspects of thermal distribution loops for large campuses
No full textFollowing an introduction, the author describes Texas A&M University and its utilities system. After that, the author presents how to construct simulation models for chilled water and heating hot water distribution systems. The simulation model was used in a $2.3 million Ross Street chilled water pipe replacement project at Texas A&M University. A second project conducted at the University of Texas at San Antonio was used as an example to demonstrate how to identify and design an optimal distribution system by using a simulation model. The author found that the minor losses of these closed loop thermal distribution systems are significantly higher than potable water distribution systems. In the second part of the report, the author presents the latest development of software called the Plant Optimization Program, which can simulate cogeneration plant operation, estimate its operation cost and provide optimized operation suggestions. The author also developed detailed simulation models for a gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator and identified significant potential savings. Finally, the author also used a steam turbine as an example to present a multi-regression method on constructing simulation models by using basic statistics and optimization algorithms. This report presents a survey of the author??s working experience at the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) at Texas A&M University during the period of January 2002 through March 2004. The purpose of the above work was to allow the author to become familiar with the practice of engineering. The result is that the author knows how to complete a project from start to finish and understands how both technical and nontechnical aspects of a project need to be considered in order to ensure a quality deliverable and bring a project to successful completion. This report concludes that the objectives of the internship were successfully accomplished and that the requirements for the degree of Degree of Engineering have been satisfied
Intern experience at CH���M Hill, Inc.: an internship report
No full textIncludes author's vita"Submitted to the College of Engineering of Texas A&M University in partial
fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Engineering."Includes bibliographical referencesA review of the author's internship experience with CH���M HILL, Inc.
during the period September 1975 through May 1976 is presented. During this nine month
internship the author worked as an Engineer II in the Industrial Processes discipline of this
large consulting engineering firm... The author's prime responsibility was as one of three
lead design engineers on the design of a large wastewater treatment facility for a pulp mill
in Hoquiam, Washington owned by ITT Rayonier Inc. The work generally consisted of the design
of individual treatment units and associated piping and pumping. The purpose of the project
was to provide wastewater treatment capabilities that would satisfy the effluent limitations
(standards) imposed upon the mill by the State of Washington Department of Ecology and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The author's assignment also entailed necessary
interaction with the project manager and other CH���M HILL design engineers and support staff
members, the client's representatives, and representatives of two other consulting engineering
firms working on the project. Thus, the internship position at CH���M HILL provided considerable
experience coordinating the author's work with the work of other engineers, guiding the design
and administrative efforts of a support staff, and interacting regularly with the client and
other consulting firms. This broad exposure to a variety of engineering and organizational
problems provided a valuable educational experience
Does inbreeding affect personality traits? An experimental study in a precocial bird
No full textBeccardi M, Moiron Cacharron M, Salmón P, Tschirren B, Vedder O. Does inbreeding affect personality traits? An experimental study in a precocial bird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology . 2024;78(12): 123.Inbreeding is known to have deleterious effects on offspring performance, but the extent to which such inbreeding depression acts on traits is widely variable. In particular, condition-dependent traits that are subject to directional selection are expected to show stronger inbreeding depression. However, while inbreeding effects on primary determinants of fitness have been thoroughly investigated, the impact of inbreeding on other potentially condition-dependent traits such as behavioural and "personality" traits remain little studied. Here, we performed experimental matings between full-siblings and unrelated individuals of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) and tested the effect of inbreeding on eight behavioural traits hypothesized to be linked to "personality" differences. Structural equation modelling revealed that these traits were part of a behavioural syndrome involving two a priori hypothesised latent variables, described as emotivity and neophobia. These were underlying all the measured behavioural traits and covaried negatively. Yet, we found no behavioural differences between inbred and outbred offspring, except for tonic immobility, which was longer in inbred offspring. We therefore conclude that inbreeding only has limited effects on behavioural traits linked to personality, suggesting that variation in these behaviours is not underlain by rare recessive deleterious alleles, as predicted when a trait is not condition dependent. It is well known that inbreeding negatively affects traits associated with reproduction and survival. However, how inbreeding affects the overall "personality" of an individual is hardly investigated. In this study we are the first to investigate this in a bird species. Even though we found evidence for a behavioural syndrome in Japanese quail chicks, inbreeding did not affect most of their personality traits. We therefore suggest that personality is not strongly affected by increased homozygosity through inbreeding
Transition to turbulence in a qblique shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction at M=15
No full textDirect numerical simulations are carried out for different forcing techniques to trigger transition during the interaction between an oblique shock-wave and a laminar boundary-layer at M = 1.5. Three forcing methods are used: a) forcing of oblique unstable modes, whose shape and behaviour are determined by the local linear stability theory, b) broadband free-stream acoustic disturbances, and c) a cold plasma flow control device. While the oblique-mode breakdown is dominant for low-amplitude forcing, long streaky structures drive the transition process in a high-amplitude disturbance environment. LES are also performed on the experimental setup by the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) from Novosibirsk State University with cold plasma actuation. As well as the disturbance type, the effect of Reynolds number and forcing amplitude will be investigated
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