Defense Costs Research Articles

Physiological costs of chemical defence: repeated reflex bleeding weakens the immune system and postpones reproduction in a ladybird beetle

In insects, external chemical defences, such as reflex bleeding, have been proved to be an efficient strategy against various predators. At the same time, significant costs of reflex bleeding can be expected because bled haemolymph is lost and all valuable components included have to be renewed. Interestingly, this issue has rarely been investigated for adult insects. In this study, we examined the immune and fitness costs of repeated reflex bleeding in adults of the invasive ladybird Harmonia axyridis, investigating several haemolymph parameters. Reflex bleeding induced twice a week for three weeks resulted in a significant reduction in haemocyte concentration, total protein content, and antimicrobial activity against Micrococcus luteus, and a marginally non-significant decrease in antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli. Repeated reflex bleeding did not result in significant body mass reduction. Interestingly, resource limitation in the form of complete food absence did not significantly interact with reflex bleeding, even though starvation itself had a strong negative effect on all haemolymph parameters investigated and individual body mass. Daily reflex bleeding did not result in decreased fecundity of young ladybirds during the first 30 days of their adult life, but the start of ladybird reproduction was delayed by about two days. Moreover, ladybirds bleeding larger amounts of haemolymph started their reproduction significantly later. Overall, our results indicate that repeated reflex bleeding weakens a ladybird’s immune system and can increase their susceptibility to pathogens, but a ladybird’s reproductive potential remains almost unaffected, even by very intensive reflex bleeding.

A DESCRIPTION OF DEFENSE ECONOMY AS A SCIENCE

The approach in this study uses a descriptive approach, the approach is intended to describe the description of the defense economy as a science by emphasizing the study of defense economics, especially the issues of study that developed during the cold war and post-cold war studies and the development of defense economy studies according to contemporary definitions. Defense economics is a study of defense costs that examines issues of defense and peace using economic analysis and methods which include microeconomic and macroeconomic studies such as static and dynamic optimization, growth theories, distribution, comparison of statistical and econometric data (use of statistical economic models). The post-Cold War Defense Economy is no longer just about managing logistical resources during wartime, managing the supply of weapons on the battlefield or war winning strategies by controlling economic resources. Understanding of the Defense Economy today has shifted to issues such as conflict, terrorism, peace, disasters to social problems ranging from food to health.

Recognition of 'Defense Cost Sharing' through Big Data

To study, Twitter, the social media, was selected and analyzed by applying word cloud, social network and LDA techniques as keywords. The results showed that the main key words based on frequency were resident in Korea, rise, burdened, and negotiation, while the main key words considering word relationship and centrality were THADD, opposite, cost, deployment and aligned alliance. In addition, LDA technology has shown that 'THADD base construction costs', 'the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea', 'Recommendation of unpaid leave of Korean workers' and 'the government's efforts to reopen negotiations' have become an issue in the current negotiation process related to 'defense cost sharing'. Through this, it was possible to identify the key words that the public recognizes “defense-sharing expenses,” and furthermore, the government should pursue strategic negotiation policies in consideration of the key words and topics recognized by the people in order to achieve successful negotiation results.

Defense against predators incurs high reproductive costs for the aposematic moth Arctia plantaginis.

To understand how variation in warning displays evolves and is maintained, we need to understand not only how perceivers of these traits select color and toxicity but also the sources of the genetic and phenotypic variation exposed to selection by them. We studied these aspects in the wood tiger moth Arctia plantaginis, which has two locally co-occurring male color morphs in Europe: yellow and white. When threatened, both morphs produce defensive secretions from their abdomen and from thoracic glands. Abdominal fluid has shown to be more important against invertebrate predators than avian predators, and the defensive secretion of the yellow morph is more effective against ants. Here, we focused on the morph-linked reproductive costs of secretion of the abdominal fluid and quantified the proportion of phenotypic and genetic variation in it. We hypothesized that, if yellow males pay higher reproductive costs for their more effective aposematic display, the subsequent higher mating success of white males could offer one explanation for the maintenance of the polymorphism. We first found that the heritable variation in the quantity of abdominal secretion was very low (h2 = 0.006) and the quantity of defensive secretion was not dependent on the male morph. Second, deploying the abdominal defensive secretion decreased the reproductive output of both color morphs equally. This suggests that potential costs of pigment production and chemical defense against invertebrates are not linked in A. plantaginis. Furthermore, our results indicate that environmentally induced variation in chemical defense can alter an individual’s fitness significantly.

Relationships among catalpol sequestration, metabolism and nutritional efficiencies of the catalpa sphinx, Ceratomia catalpae (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae)

AbstractSequestration of defensive compounds acquired from the environment can be costly to herbivorous insects. The catalpa sphinx, Ceratomia catalpae Boisduval (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) sequesters the iridoid glycoside catalpol, which it acquires from Catalpa spp. (Lamiales: Bignoniaceae) host plants, at concentrations above those in host plant leaves. Previous research has shown that C. catalpae larvae are avoided by predatory arthropods; however, catalpol sequestration is negatively associated with the larval immune response, suggesting a cost to sequestration. By measuring the mass of C. catalpae larvae, their frass, and their diet, as well as respiration rate and catalpol sequestration, this study aimed to determine whether sequestration is also associated with reduced growth and nutritional efficiency. I found that respiration rate was negatively correlated with the amount of catalpol sequestered and positively correlated with the concentration, or proportion dry mass of catalpol sequestered, and that the amount of catalpol sequestered was positively correlated with three of four measures of nutritional efficiency. Larger larvae that were closer to pupation sequestered very low proportions dry mass of catalpol and had a reduced respiratory rate per unit mass. These results suggest that sequestration has some costs for expenditure of energy, but is positively correlated with several growth and nutrition‐related processes. Instead, the immunological cost of sequestration measured in previous studies could be due to direct effects on immune system components. Further research on the potential metabolic costs of chemical defense in other specialist species is recommended.

The role of dislodgement in the territorial ecology of the owl limpet, Lottia gigantea

Ascertaining the risks and benefits of different behaviors is a central goal of research on territoriality. Although most territorial behavior is ritualized, with concomitant reduced risks for both residents and intruders, this ritualization is generally found to be underpinned by rare, highly consequential, interactions. The agonistic behavior of the intertidal owl limpet, Lottia gigantea, involves defense of a feeding territory, and includes a relatively explosive thrusting response by territory holders against intruding conspecifics. We here ask whether this thrusting behavior is capable of entirely dislodging intruders from their rocky wave-swept substratum, thereby ridding the resident of future challenges by that intruder. Our field measurements of the strength of territorial thrusts, as well as thrust resistance, indicate that territorial limpets are strong enough to overcome the resistance of small to medium sized (<40 mm) conspecifics encountered on their territories. Interestingly, at least 44% of the limpets dislodged from the rock substratum during a retreat or territorial response survived in a new location. Growth of these survivors was at least as rapid as that of undisturbed limpets in the old location. We conclude that shell thrusting during the territorial response of Lottia gigantea can reduce the cost of territorial defense by dislodging smaller conspecifics, thereby eliminating them from all future interactions. Conversely, the risk incurred by these smaller conspecifics while intruding onto territories of larger individuals is likely mitigated by the surprisingly high survival rate, and subsequent normal growth, of dislodged limpets.

Stochastic Cost Minimization Mechanism Based on Identifier Network for IoT Security

An identifier network (IN), as one of the promising network architectures to solve the IP dual properties problems, has been applied in many areas, including Internet of Things (IoT) for smart cities scenario. The separation mechanisms of an access/core network and identifier/location can benefit IoT in terms of trust management, access control, and privacy protection. The core network in IN is independent of the access network by introducing two namespaces, which makes the core network difficult to be attacked but easy for trust management. However, access network, such as access wireless sensor network (WSN), is facing serious trust and security challenge. Therefore, this article addresses this problem by using network address shuffling. We present an optimization framework of defense cost for IoT security and formulate it as a stochastic cost optimization problem by considering the impacts of network address shuffling control, network autoimmunity control, and defense cost. To improve its generality, we adopt a Lyapunov optimization theory and transform the formulated optimization problem into a queue stability problem, and further decompose the queue stability problem into two subproblems to solve the initial optimization problem. Finally, a novel stochastic cost minimization mechanism (SCMM) consisting of two algorithms for the derived subproblems is proposed. Through logical theoretical analyses, it is proved that our proposed mechanism can achieve the optimized results while maintaining the security of each access WSN and guaranteeing the limited network resources. The extensive simulation results verify that the tradeoff between defense strategy and limited network resources can be well tackled by the balancing factor.

Quantifying storm surge and risk reduction costs: a case study for Lafitte, Louisiana

Rising sea levels have increased flood risk in coastal communities on both the east and west coasts of the USA. The goal of this analysis is to approximate flood defense costs from cyclonic flooding as a partial means to evaluate the resilience of coastal communities. Storm surge models were previously constructed via an established approach to represent historical and future coastal Louisiana landscapes and associated flood patterns. Coastal flooding was also previously simulated via a suite of 14 hurricanes. Approximate levee heights surrounding Lafitte, Louisiana, are calculated from the surge and wave output of Hurricane Isaac, the predominated hurricane in the Lafitte area for all years examined (NAVD88, m): 1.68 (1930), 2.92 (1970), 3.30 (1990), 4.82 (2010), 5.93 (2030), 6.57 (2050), 7.16 (2070), 7.70 (2090), and 8.22 (2110). Approximate costs per person are also calculated (2010 USD): $49,500 (1930), $41,400 (1970), $37,500 (1990), $181,600 (2010), $223,600 (2030), $247,800 (2050), $269,900 (2070), $290,100 (2090), and $309,800 (2110). The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) migrated 7.4 km inland within the Louisiana Barataria coastal basin between 1973 and 2010. For each person in Lafitte, flood defense costs increased approximately (2010 USD) $19,000 per person per kilometer inland migration of the GOM from 1973 to 2010. The methodology developed in this case study effectively connects wetland loss with increased flood defense costs and can be applied to communities with similar challenges.

Usury Enforcement as an Alternative to Capital Taxation in Pre-Modern States

All governments have an obligation to protect their territory and the wealth within that territory from external predation. In fact, since war has historically resulted in the plunder and destruction of wealth, it seems straightforward to suggest that the cost of providing adequate defense of one's territory is a function of the accumulated wealth within the territory. Suppose that all wealth in society is capital. The accumulation of capital conveys a private benefit to its owner, but imposes an external cost on society. As with any externality, the optimal tax policy would be to tax capital. The revenue from capital taxation could then be used to finance defense. Such a taxation scheme, however, requires the state to have an appropriate level of bureaucratic capacity. During the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, this sort of state infrastructure did not exist. Yet the rulers of those states faced the same constraint. In this paper, I argue that the enforcement of usury laws during this period imperfectly replicate the outcome of the optimal capital tax. Lending at interest was prohibited. However, rulers often allowed certain groups to lend in society in exchange for a license fee. This granted monopoly status to lenders. At the same time, rulers imposed binding price ceilings on interest rates. The combination of these three characteristics of enforcement replicate the long-run restriction on capital accumulation of the optimal capital tax whereas the licensing fees allowed the governments to collect as much as half of the revenue that the optimal capital tax would generate. Given that some defense costs were paid in kind, this sort of policy is capable of replicating the optimal capital tax. I support this claim with historical examples of ``lombard'' and Jewish lending in pre-modern England, Italy, and France.

Dental negligence: It is time to overcome it

Dentistry is an honorable profession, but the relationship between the patient and the dentist has changed drastically in the last 20 years. Anxiety has risen in the community and dental profession due to patients' increased tendency to file legal cases against dentists. Thus, awareness of ethics and medicolegal matters is essential for every dental practitioner. This review was conducted to find exact literature related to dental negligence, dentist awareness of negligence, dental consent, and the Consumer Protection Act. An attempt has also been made to inform dentists that they must follow certain protocols to avert lawsuits due to illegal and/or negligent dental practice. In December 2019, the PubMed, Medline, and EBSCOhost databases were electronically searched for published literature, and 648 articles were screened. A manual search was also conducted to retrieve articles of interest. Titles and abstracts related to the topic of interest and available in English were screened and included in the study. Patient consent must be obtained in written before any treatment procedure. Dentists must be aware of dental negligence, as well as the laws governing it, and should be insured under professional indemnity insurance (“defense costs”). In the event of legal proceedings, this provides protection and financial support for case settlement and other expenses.

ТРЕТИЙ ГОД ТРАМПА В БЕЛОМ ДОМЕ: ИДЕЙНЫЙ РАСКОЛ И МЕЖДУНАРОДНАЯ КОНФЛИКТНОСТЬ

The article is aimed at analyzing the main trends in domestic, economic and foreign policy of the USA in 2019. All the political life of the year was organized around the long-lasting confrontation of the democratically controlled House and Trump. In the core of this opposition are values and institutional balance of power. Historical ideological polarization brings a new wave of institutional rebalancing: both the President and the Congress fight to extend their constitutional powers. At the same time the Democratic House aims to force out Trump from political process by any means. All through the year, the House was concentrated on investigating Presidential activity, which culminated in a vote to impeach Trump. But the legislative results of the Congress turned out to be the poorest for the decade. Besides the institutional powers, at the center of the confrontation between the President and the Democrats are values. Both sides represent two different Americas with opposing views on the present and the future of the country. This ideological confrontation showed up perfectly during the longest shutdown at the beginning of the year and then during the impeachment process. The domestic polarization went in parallel with conflicts on the global stage. America's search for a new format of global leadership brought a whole year of trade confrontation with China, which finally resulted in a highly controversial agreement, the new trade agreement with Japan, the new wave of tensions with European allies about collective defense costs and technological leadership, comeback of the conflict with Iran, the rising competition on the energy markets and the enduring confrontation with Russia. 2019 year made it clear that while it is still difficult to predict the vector of the fundamental transformations, which the USA is now going through, these changes have already influenced American leadership style.

Monetary Policy in a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime: Structural Vector Autoregressions with Jumps

This paper evaluates monetary policy effects in a fixed exchange rate regime. A fixed exchange rate regime sometimes suffers from turbulence, owing to speculative attacks or other factors that significantly change the expectations of maintaining such a regime. We, therefore, develop a vector autoregression model with a jump processes to evaluate monetary policy in both tranquil and turbulent states. We find that a contractionary monetary policy shock in the tranquil period only affects the exchange rate in the very short run. Nonetheless, the shock significantly reduces the price level and industrial production, especially for a credible peg with a wider band. During the turbulent period, the exchange rate is kept stable for one quarter when facing the same shock—while industrial production drops significantly. The findings, also shed light on the cost of successful defense of speculative attacks.

U.S. Maritime Policy and Economic Efficiency

Critics argue that maritime policy is protectionist legislation that restricts competition and reduces economic efficiency. In this paper, I argue the contrary. I begin with the premise that the primary role of the state is to provide national defense. A country must be able to protect its wealth, and therefore its capital, from plunder and/or destruction. This implies that a sufficient level of defense spending is increasing in the capital stock. An efficient solution is to tax capital to finance defense. Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that capital devoted to shipping imposes a lower marginal defense cost than other forms of capital because ships can be used as a naval auxiliary. If so, then one would expect that the optimal tax rate on shipbuilding and the merchant marine would be lower than other capital-intensive firms. Put differently, maritime subsidies during peacetime can be understood as the result of a Coaseian bargain in which the government compensates shipbuilders and the merchant marine during peacetime in exchange for their services during wartime. I argue that the history of U.S. maritime policy is broadly consistent with my theory. I conclude by discussing the current state of the merchant marine and maritime policy.

Evolution of phenotypic plasticity: Genetic differentiation and additive genetic variation for induced plant defence in wild arugula Eruca sativa.

Phenotypic plasticity is the primary mechanism of organismal resilience to abiotic and biotic stress, and genetic differentiation in plasticity can evolve if stresses differ among populations. Inducible defence is a common form of adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and long-standing theory predicts that its evolution is shaped by costs of the defensive traits, costs of plasticity and a trade-off in allocation to constitutive versus induced traits. We used a common garden to study the evolution of defence in two native populations of wild arugula Eruca sativa (Brassicaceae) from contrasting desert and Mediterranean habitats that differ in attack by caterpillars and aphids. We report genetic differentiation and additive genetic variance for phenology, growth and three defensive traits (toxic glucosinolates, anti-nutritive protease inhibitors and physical trichome barriers) as well their inducibility in response to the plant hormone jasmonic acid. The two populations were strongly differentiated for plasticity in nearly all traits. There was little evidence for costs of defence or plasticity, but constitutive and induced traits showed a consistent additive genetic trade-off within each population for the three defensive traits. We conclude that these populations have evolutionarily diverged in inducible defence and retain ample potential for the future evolution of phenotypic plasticity in defence.

Priming of inducible defenses protects Norway spruce against tree-killing bark beetles.

Plants can form an immunological memory known as defense priming, whereby exposure to a priming stimulus enables quicker or stronger response to subsequent attack by pests and pathogens. Such priming of inducible defenses provides increased protection and reduces allocation costs of defense. Defense priming has been widely studied for short-lived model plants such as Arabidopsis, but little is known about this phenomenon in long-lived plants like spruce. We compared the effects of pretreatment with sublethal fungal inoculations or application of the phytohormone methyl jasmonate (MeJA) on the resistance of 48-year-old Norway spruce (Picea abies) trees to mass attack by a tree-killing bark beetle beginning 35days later. Bark beetles heavily infested and killed untreated trees but largely avoided fungus-inoculated trees and MeJA-treated trees. Quantification of defensive terpenes at the time of bark beetle attack showed fungal inoculation induced 91-fold higher terpene concentrations compared with untreated trees, whereas application of MeJA did not significantly increase terpenes. These results indicate that resistance in fungus-inoculated trees is a result of direct induction of defenses, whereas resistance in MeJA-treated trees is due to defense priming. This work extends our knowledge of defense priming from model plants to an ecologically important tree species.

Resource allocation trade-offs in a mast-seeding conifer: Piñon pine prioritizes reproduction over defense

Abstract The cost of plant reproduction or defense at the expense of other fitness traits is a central component of life history theory. Yet the three central resource allocation pathways of growth, reproduction, and defense have rarely been assessed simultaneously nor across individual to landscape scales. This information is critical towards identifying the physiological, environmental, and genetic mechanisms underpinning resource allocation. This study assessed trade-offs in resource allocation between tree growth, defense, and reproduction across scales among piñon pine (Pinusedulis), a widespread mast-seeding conifer of the southwestern USA. Time series (2004-2016) of tree growth (radial and primary shoot growth), defense (resin duct production; a key constitutive defense for this species), and cone production among individual trees from populations across a broad environmental gradient were used to investigate these trade-offs in resource allocation across three scales: individual, population, and landscape. We found evidence for a defense-reproduction trade-off among individuals whereby total resin duct area in annual xylem rings was lower during years of above average cone production. Despite variability in cone and resin duct production across trees within a population and across populations, there was no association between these fitness traits at either of those scales. There was no evidence of trade-offs between cone production and growth at any scales measured, whereas resin duct production and growth were positively related at all scales. Our study suggests that a strategic trade-off occurs whereby investment into defense is temporarily curtailed to favor reproduction, despite increased risk of exposure to natural enemies and the ability of piñon pine to simultaneously allocate carbon to growth and defense. Our study provides new insights into physiological expressions of growth, defense, and reproduction over time in this long-lived masting conifer and indicates the presence of trade-offs with direct importance for individual fitness and population dynamics under global change.

Ostrom, Floods and Mismatched Property Rights

How societies can cope with flood risk along coasts and riverbanks is a critical theoretical and empirical problem – particularly in the wake of anthropogenic climate change and the increased severity of floods. An example of this challenge is the growing costs of publicly-funded flood defense in Britain and popular outcries during the regular occasions that the British government fails to protect property and land during heavy rains. Traditional approaches to institutional analysis suggest that flood management is either a public good that only the government is competent to provide or a private good to which individual landowners are ultimately responsible for supplying. We argue that an important cause of failure in flood management is mismatched property rights. This is where the scale of natural events and resources fail to align with the scale of human activities, responsibility and ownership. Moreover, the spatial dimensions of floods mean that their management is often appropriately conceptualized as a common pool resource problem. As a result, commons institutions as conceptualized and observed by Elinor Ostrom are likely to be major contributors to effective flood management. What governance process should decide the size and scope of these institutions? We argue that bottom-up responses to problems of mismatched property rights are facilitated within larger societies that are characterized by market processes. Moreover, the wider presence of price signals delivers to local communities essential knowledge about the cost of maintaining private property and the relative scarcity of the communal goods. We discuss how our theoretical positions align with experience in Britain and what the implications of our theoretical approach are for facilitating the development of better institutions.

한미 방위비 분담 협상을 위한 소고

한미 방위비 분담 협상을 위한 소고

Anthropogenic noise affects male house wren response to but not detection of territorial intruders.

Anthropogenic noise decreases signal active space, or the area over which male bird song can be detected in the environment. For territorial males, noise may make it more difficult to detect and assess territorial challenges, which in turn may increase defense costs and influence whether males maintain territory ownership. We tested the hypothesis that noise affects the ability of male house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) near active nests to detect intruders and alters responses to them. We broadcast pre-recorded male song and pink noise on territories to simulate intrusions with and without noise, as well as to noise alone. We measured detection by how long males took to sing or approach the speaker after the start of a playback. To measure whether playbacks changed male behavior, we compared their vocal responses before and during treatments, as well as compared mean vocal responses and the number of flyovers and attacks on the speaker during treatments. Noise did not affect a male’s ability to detect an intruder on his territory. Males altered their responses to simulated intruders with and without noise compared to the noise-only treatment by singing longer songs at faster rates. Males increased peak frequency of songs during intrusions without noise compared to noise-only treatments, but frequency during intruder plus noise treatments did not differ from either. When confronting simulated intruders in noise, males increased the number of attacks on the speaker compared to intruders without noise, possibly because they were less able to assess intruders via songs and relied on close encounters for information. Although noise did not affect intruder detection, noise affected some aspects of singing and aggressive responses, which may be related to the challenge of discriminating and assessing territorial threats under elevated noise.

Fourteen years of litigation claims in cardiothoracic surgery in the United Kingdom National Health Service.

Approximately 36 400 cardiac and 23 100 thoracic operations are carried out in the United Kingdom between 2006 and 2015. National Health Service (NHS) resolution, as known as the NHS litigation authority, is one of the essential bodies of the Department of Health. Its purpose is to provide NHS expertise to resolve concerns fair and square share learning for improvement. We aim to evaluate and increase awareness of medicolegal cases in cardiothoracic surgery. Total numbers and details of claims coded by NHS resolution in cardiothoracic surgery from 2004 to 2017 were requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The data provided in successful claims is further breakdown into damages paid to the claimant, defence cost, claimant cost paid and the sum of the three. In contrast, unsuccessful claims only include the defence cost. Moreover, data provided also includes further analysis of primary causes and primary injuries for Claims Closed/Settled with damages paid. There were 753 claims recorded from 2004 to 2017, of which 415 (55.11%) were successful. The number of claims has been steadily increasing since 2004, with two significant raises from 2009/10 to 2010/11 (37-55, 48.64% raise) and 2012/13 to 2013/14 (49-69, 40.82% raise). The mean successful claim ratio was 69.58% (range, 47.56%- 83.33%) There is also a steady increase in the successful ratio from 2004 to 2017. In summary, this is the first study published in relation to litigation claims on cardiothoracic surgery in the United Kingdom. The results have provided insight on claims made against cardiothoracic surgery.