1,721,070 research outputs found
Extending Bayesian Elo‐rating to quantify the steepness of dominance hierarchies
No full textAbstract The steepness of dominance hierarchies provides information about the degree of competition within animal social groups and is thus an important concept in socioecology. The currently most widely used metrics to quantify steepness are based on David's scores (DS) derived from dominance interaction networks. One serious drawback of these DS‐based metrics is that they are biased, that is, network density systematically decreases steepness values. We provide a novel approach to estimate steepness based on Elo‐ratings, implemented in a Bayesian framework (STEER: Steepness estimation with Elo‐rating). We evaluate and validate its performance by means of experimentation on empirical and artificial datasets and compare its performance to that of several other steepness estimators. STEER has two key advantages. First, it is unbiased, precise and more robust to data density than DS‐based steepness. Second, it provides explicit probability distributions of the estimated steepness coefficient, which allows uncertainty assessment. In addition, it relies on the same underlying concept and is on the same scale as the original measure, and thus allows comparison to existing published results. STEER provides a considerable improvement over existing methods to estimate dominance hierarchy steepness. We demonstrate its application with an example comparing within‐ and between species variation in steepness in a comparative analysis and present guidelines on how to use it. The R package EloSteepness allows convenient numeric and graphical assessment of the new steepness measure
Temporal dynamics and fitness consequences of coalition formation in male primates
No full textCoalition formation is one of the most striking forms of cooperation found in animals. Yet, there is substantial variation between taxa regarding the mechanisms by which coalitions can result in fitness consequences. Here, we investigate the influence of coalitions on dominance rank trajectories and subsequently on reproductive success in wild male crested macaques (Macaca nigra) at Tangkoko Nature Reserve (Sulawesi, Indonesia). We observed 128 coalition events involving 28 males and tested how a variety of coalition properties and factors related to the social environment influenced future male rank. We further used genetic paternity analysis of 19 infants conceived during the study to assess male reproductive success. Our results show that males participating in coalitions achieved higher-than-expected future ranks, while coalition targets had lower-than-expected future ranks. Additionally, all-up coalitions had stronger effects on rank than all-down and bridging coalitions, and these were modulated by the relative strength of coalition partners versus targets. Finally, higher ranking males were more likely to sire infants than lower ranking males. These results provide important insights regarding the mechanisms underlying coalition formation and support the idea that one major path by which coalitions can affect fitness is through influencing male dominance trajectories
Meat transfer patterns reflect the multi-level social system of Guinea baboons
No full textMulti-level societies, characterized by stable subunits nested within higher-order social levels, occur in humans and several other taxa. In hunter-gatherers, resource sharing, particularly meat, is considered a key driver of multi-level social organization. Despite its importance in humans, patterns of resource transmission in non-human multi-level societies remain largely unexplored. Using Guinea baboons, Papio papio, as a model, we examined how meat, a high-quality, shareable resource, is transmitted through their multi-level society. We combined records of 109 meat-eating events with nine years of behavioral and demographic data to test how relationship strength and stratified social levels affect meat sharing. Meat transfers were more likely to occur along stronger social relationships, and tolerant transfer types were most common at the society’s base, decreasing with each higher social level. This pattern resembles that of some hunter-gatherer societies, suggesting convergent outcomes of multi-level social organization on the transmission of high-quality shareable resources.Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 202
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe 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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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