Different Classes Of Individuals Research Articles

The economic importance of Euterpe Oleracea Mart. (açaí), for the Arióca Pruanã/Oeiras do Pará extraction reserve

Brazil is among the countries responsible for supplying the açaí market in the world, and this fruit is used in the production of numerous products used for the most different purposes. Açaí, like other Amazonian products, has been gaining notoriety in the international economy not only for its Amazon benefits, but for the economic alternative of producing new market niches for large industries. Pará is the largest producer of açaí at the national level, with a turnover of more than R$460 million year. In the state, the largest production of the fruit is in the municipalities of Limoeiro do Ajuru (42 thousand tons) and Oeiras do Pará (26.5 thousand tons). In this sense, this research aimed to analyze the importance of açaí cultivation for farmers who live in the Arióca Pruanã extractive reserve, and what are the economic benefits that the sale of this fruit brings to the municipality's economy. The present research had as methodological framework the exploratory field investigation carried out in the extractive reserve Arióca Pruanã, at the points of collection of the fruit of the middlemen, as well as an interview with the community located in the reserve that maintains its way of life, from management to commercialization, becoming a fundamental part of the dynamic chain of production and distribution of açaí. The survey was conducted from June to August 2021. A questionnaire was developed and applied to 20 producers and 15 middlemen representing two different classes of individuals working in this trade: 20 to farmers and 15 to middlemen. The research identified that there are 2 main categories of agents that sell açaí within the reserve and that the açaí marketed comes from the floodplain areas surrounding the reserve. And that both the Oeiras and the Arióca rivers have potential for mass production of açaí. One of the main problems that weakens this production is the lack of technical assistance and projects aimed at family farming.

Classification of post COVID-19 condition symptoms: a longitudinal study in the Belgian population

ObjectivesSince the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, most research has focused on its acute pathophysiology, yet some people tend to experience persisting symptoms beyond the acute phase of infection, referred...

Prevalence and Pattern of Sexual Assaults among the Mentally Ill attending the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital

Background: Sexual assault among the mentally ill has become a common trend of public health concern occurring in various forms and perpetrated by different classes of individuals. It has become a more accurate predictor of suicidal ideation and attempt than any other form of abuse. Aim: This study determined the prevalence and pattern of sexual assaults among the mentally ill attending the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted among attendees of Neuropsychiatric Outpatient Clinic of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH). A structured questionnaire covering socio-demographic characteristics and other factors were self-administered to 75 patients diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders by consultant Psychiatrists at the out-patient clinic via a systematic random sampling method. Ethical approval was obtained from the ethical committee of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Results: Majority of the mentally ill patients were male (81%), had tertiary education (58.7%), and between the ages of 21 and 30 (44%). The most common mental illness experienced by victims of sexual assault include depression 21(28.0%), the least being sleep and personality disorders 1(1.3%). 16% reported that they had experienced sexual assault, and majority (38.7%) reported that the assault occurred when they were between the ages of 10 and 18. Majority of perpetrators of sexual assault were siblings 5(6.7%), followed by mother 3(4.0%). Some percentage was strangers (1.3%), with the rest being either a visitor to the house (1.3%), or neighbor (1.3%). Only (2.7%) of those who experienced sexual assault reported the assault, (9.3%) did not report it, while 66 (88%) had no response. Conclusion: Sexual assault among the mentally ill is on the rise and manifests in several forms. Measures should be taken by all stakeholders including the government to curb this ugly trend.

Hybrid theories, psychological plausibility, and the human/animal divide.

A hybrid theory is any moral theory according to which different classes of individuals ought to be treated according to different principles. We argue that some hybrid theories are able to meet standards of psychological plausibility, by which we mean that it’s feasible for ordinary human beings to understand and act in accord with them. Insofar as psychological plausibility is a theoretical virtue, then, such hybrid theories deserve more serious consideration. To make the case for this view, we explain what psychological plausibility is and why we might value it, why the human/animal divide appears to be an entrenched feature of human psychology, and why Robert Nozick’s hybrid theory doesn’t go far enough. Finally, we make the case that a more promising psychologically plausible hybrid theory, with respect to humans and animals, will be (at least) at tribrid theory—that is, positing three domains rather than two.

Mathematical Analysis of Spread Models: From the viewpoints of Deterministic and random cases

This paper models the spread of the pandemic with mathematical analysis to provide predictions for different classes of individuals. We consider the spread by using a branching process and a substitution dynamical system as random and deterministic models, respectively, to approximate the pandemic outbreak. Both approaches are based on the assumption of Markov processing. The deterministic model provides an explicit estimate for the proportion of individuals of a certain type in the particular generation given any initial condition, where a generation means a unit of observation time. The proportion relates to the matrix derived from the Markov setting. In addition, the methodology reveals the efficiency of epidemic control policies, such as vaccine injections or quarantine, by the relative spread rate that is used for the prediction of the number of individuals of a certain type. On the other hand, the stochastic approximation has more of an empirical impact than the deterministic one does. Our investigation explicitly exhibits the spread rate of a certain type with respect to an initial condition of any type. After estimating the average spread rate, the effect of adopting a particular policy can be evaluated. The novelty of this elucidation lies in connecting these two models and introducing the idea of the transition spread model between two topological spread models to capture the change of the spread patterns, which is a real-world phenomenon during the epidemic periods due to changes in the environment or changes in disease control policies. Roughly speaking, the deterministic model is a special case of the stochastic model under some particular probability. Most importantly, with the help of the stochastic model, we establish the transition processing of two deterministic models, which is called a transition model. In other words, any stochastic model is “bounded” by two deterministic models. Moreover, a computable way has been established to predict the long-term spread rate due to the Markov properties of the models and matrix representations for the spread patterns.

Assessing the impact of transmissibility on a cluster-based COVID-19 model in India

In this paper, we have proposed a nonlinear mathematical model of different classes of individuals for coronavirus (COVID-19). The model incorporates the effect of transmission and treatment on the occurrence of new infections. For the model, the basic reproduction number [Formula: see text] has been computed. Corresponding to the threshold quantity [Formula: see text], the stability of endemic and disease-free equilibrium (DFE) points are determined. For [Formula: see text], if the endemic equilibrium point exists, then it is locally asymptotically stable, whereas the DFE point is globally asymptotically stable for [Formula: see text] which implies the eradication of the disease. The effects of various parameters on the spread of COVID-19 are discussed in the segment of sensitivity analysis. The model is numerically simulated to understand the effect of reproduction number on the transmission dynamics of the disease COVID-19. From the numerical simulations, it is concluded that if the reproduction number for the coronavirus disease is reduced below unity by decreasing the transmission rate and detecting more number of infectives, then the epidemic can be eradicated from the population.

Estimation of travel time distributions for urban roads using GPS trajectories of vehicles: a case of Athens, Greece

Investigating travel time distribution and associated variability is important for a variety of transport planning, traffic management, and control projects. Studies that investigated travel time distribution tend to be limited to explore changes in characteristics of distribution with respect to space and time of day. Given the availability of big dataset that contains seven different types of vehicle trajectories in the city of Athens for around 56,000 trips which are traversing on more than 1.8 million road links, this study presents the detailed investigation of travel time distribution in different spatiotemporal settings. The study considered four different types of urban roads and six time intervals along with consideration of weekdays and weekends. The empirical investigation employed Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to fit travel time data into seven unimodal statistical distributions that are found in the literature to describe travel time distribution. It is found that lognormal distribution outperformed other distribution, and all of the considered categories of travel time data are well-fitted to this distribution. Additionally, parameters of lognormal distribution for different categories of travel time data are not significantly different from each other, which led to the conclusion that travel time distribution is roughly independent of space and time, which is in agreement with a few earlier studies that are limited in their scope especially in relation with availability of data. With this important finding, this study estimate values of travel time variability for different classes of individuals employing a standard approach that requires time of day independent standardized distribution of travel time. It is estimated that for Athens population value of travel time variability is approximately half of the value of travel time. This is useful to carry out cost-benefit analyses for mobility-related projects in Athens, Greece.

Population profiles of child-reported psychotic-like experiences and their differential association with other psychopathologies.

Childhood psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) increase risk for concurrent and future psychiatric disorders but are common in the population. Strategies are needed to identify vulnerable individuals who may benefit from monitoring or targeted intervention. This study aimed to delineate profiles of childhood PLEs that might be differentially associated with other psychopathologies, and multiple psychopathology. Cross-sectional, online self-report survey. Participants were 27,000 Australian children from a population cohort (13,416 girls; mean age 11.91years) who completed an online self-report questionnaire assessing PLEs (hallucinations and delusions) and Emotional, Peer Relationship, Conduct, and Hyperactivity-Inattention psychopathology. Latent class analysis differentiated classes of children showing different patterns of PLE responses, and multinomial logistic regression determined the association between the PLE classes and the various psychopathologies, adjusted for demographic covariates and the other psychopathologies. Five latent profiles of PLE responses were characterized as follows: None (27.4% of children), Minor (29.7%), Moderate (11.8%), Hallucinatory (21.0%), and Strong (10.2%). These classes showed distinct associations with other psychopathologies (odds ratios between 1.27 and 4.58), and dose-response relationships indicated increasing likelihood of multiple psychopathology for the Hallucinatory and Strong classes (odds ratio=21.87 for ≥3 psychopathologies in the Strong class). Tailored interventions that address the particular needs of these different classes of individuals may be warranted. Children aged 11-12years who report psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) can be classified into five different PLE profiles based on self-reported questionnaire responses, which may reflect different pathological processes. These PLE profiles show different patterns and magnitudes of increased risk for other types of psychopathology, and multiple psychopathology, suggesting that they present different treatment needs. Cross-sectional investigation of the associations between PLE profiles and other psychopathologies limits any conclusions as to the causal direction of these relationships. Multi-informant reports of psychopathology were unavailable.

Crozier’s Effect and the Acceptance of Intraspecific Brood Parasites

Organisms can often benefit by distinguishing between different classes of individuals. An example is kin recognition, whereby individuals preferentially associate with or aid genetic relatives that bear matching recognition cues but reject others. Despite its potential benefits, however, kin recognition using genetically based cues is often weak or absent [1-4]. A general explanation, termed "Crozier's effect," is that when individuals interact randomly, rarer cue alleles less often match cues of other individuals, and so are involved predominantly in "reject"-type interactions. If such interactions are more costly, positive frequency-dependent selection will erode the cue diversity upon which discrimination depends [4,5]. Although widely cited [1, 2, 4, 6-9], this idea lacks rigorous testing in the field. Here, we show how Crozier's effect applies to interactions between hosts and conspecific parasites, and measure it using field data. In the wasp we studied, conspecific parasitism fits a key assumption of Crozier's model: the same females act as both hosts and parasites. By exchanging offspring between nests experimentally, we find no evidence that females respond to genetically based cues associated with foreign offspring. Through measuring costs and benefits, however, we demonstrate a strong Crozier effect: because more parental investment is wasted when foreign offspring are rejected, interactions involving rejection have substantially lower payoffs than interactions involving acceptance. Costly rejection can thus eliminate cue diversity by causing selection against rare cue alleles, consistent with the absence of genetically based recognition that we observe. Females instead appear to rely on non-genetic cues that enable them to detect less than half of parasitic offspring.

Information activities of commercial taxi drivers in Saki, Nigeria

Information behaviour of people differs according to the nature of their tasks and other activities they engage in. Therefore, the study of information behaviour is essential for different classes of individuals in the society. This study investigated the information behaviour of commercial taxi drivers in Saki, Nigeria. Survey design was adopted. Thirty-five taxi drivers were interviewed. The drivers had a variety of information needs, ranging from general information to specific information about their jobs. Interpersonal sources of information, which include discussion with friends, colleagues, and family members, were the preferred sources of information. They listened to radio and watched television, but at a very minimal level. The low educational status of the drivers was identified as a major cause of their reliance on interpersonal sources of information. The taxi drivers shared information among themselves during meetings, relaxation periods, and casual discussions. The use of the Internet to seek and share information was rare among the drivers.

Genetic structure of native ant supercolonies varies in space and time.

Ant supercolonies are the largest cooperative units known in nature. They consist of networks of interconnected nests with hundreds of reproductive queens, where individuals move freely between nests, cooperate across nest boundaries and show little aggression towards non-nestmates. The combination of high queen numbers and free mixing of workers, queens and brood between nests results in extremely low nestmate relatedness. In such low-relatedness societies, cooperative worker behaviour appears maladaptive because it may aid random individuals instead of relatives. Here, we provide a comprehensive picture of genetic substructure in supercolonies of the native wood ant Formica aquilonia using traditional population genetic as well as network analysis methods. Specifically, we test for spatial and temporal variation in genetic structure of different classes of individuals within supercolonies and analyse the role of worker movement in determining supercolony genetic networks. We find that relatedness within supercolonies is low but positive when viewed on a population level, which may be due to limited dispersal of individuals and/or ecological factors such as nest site limitation and competition against conspecifics. Genetic structure of supercolonies varied with both sample class and sampling time point, which indicates that mobility of individuals varies according to both caste and season and suggests that generalizing has to be carried out with caution in studies of supercolonial species. Overall, our analysis provides novel evidence that native wood ant supercolonies exhibit fine-scale genetic substructure, which may explain the maintenance of cooperation in these low-relatedness societies.

Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media.

Social media are used as main discussion channels by millions of individuals every day. The content individuals produce in daily social-media-based micro-communications, and the emotions therein expressed, may impact the emotional states of others. A recent experiment performed on Facebook hypothesized that emotions spread online, even in absence of non-verbal cues typical of in-person interactions, and that individuals are more likely to adopt positive or negative emotions if these are over-expressed in their social network. Experiments of this type, however, raise ethical concerns, as they require massive-scale content manipulation with unknown consequences for the individuals therein involved. Here, we study the dynamics of emotional contagion using a random sample of Twitter users, whose activity (and the stimuli they were exposed to) was observed during a week of September 2014. Rather than manipulating content, we devise a null model that discounts some confounding factors (including the effect of emotional contagion). We measure the emotional valence of content the users are exposed to before posting their own tweets. We determine that on average a negative post follows an over-exposure to 4.34% more negative content than baseline, while positive posts occur after an average over-exposure to 4.50% more positive contents. We highlight the presence of a linear relationship between the average emotional valence of the stimuli users are exposed to, and that of the responses they produce. We also identify two different classes of individuals: highly and scarcely susceptible to emotional contagion. Highly susceptible users are significantly less inclined to adopt negative emotions than the scarcely susceptible ones, but equally likely to adopt positive emotions. In general, the likelihood of adopting positive emotions is much greater than that of negative emotions.

Who escapes detection? Quantifying the causes and consequences of sampling biases in a long-term field study.

Inferences drawn from long-term field studies are vulnerable to biases in observability of different classes of individuals, which may lead to biases in the estimates of selection, or fitness. Population surveys that monitor breeding individuals can introduce such biases by not identifying individuals that fail early in their reproductive attempts. Here, we quantify how the standard protocol for detecting breeding females introduces bias in a long-term population study of the great tit, Parus major. We do so by identifying females whose breeding attempts fail before they would normally be censused and explore whether this early failure can be predicted by a number of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We investigate the effect of these biases on estimates of reproductive performance and selection. We show that females that go undetected by standard censusing because they fail early in their breeding attempt were less likely to have been previously trapped within our study site and were more likely to breed in poor-quality habitats. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this bias sampling had lead previous studies on this population to overestimate the reproductive performance of unringed females, which are likely to be immigrants to the population. Finally, we show that these biases in detectability influence estimates of selection on a key life-history trait. While these conclusions are specific to this study, we suggest that such effects are likely to be widespread and that more attention should be given to whether or not methods for surveying natural populations introduce systematic bias that will influence conclusions about ecological and evolutionary processes.

Methods and metrics challenges of delivery-system research

BackgroundMany delivery-system interventions are fundamentally about change in social systems (both planned and unplanned). This systems perspective raises a number of methodological challenges for studying the effects of delivery-system change--particularly for answering questions related to whether the change will work under different conditions and how the change is integrated (or not) into the operating context of the delivery system.MethodsThe purpose of this paper is to describe the methodological and measurement challenges posed by five key issues in delivery-system research: (1) modeling intervention context; (2) measuring readiness for change; (3) assessing intervention fidelity and sustainability; (4) assessing complex, multicomponent interventions; and (5) incorporating time in delivery-system models to discuss recommendations for addressing these issues. For each issue, we provide recommendations for how research may be designed and implemented to overcome these challenges.Results and conclusionsWe suggest that a more refined understanding of the mechanisms underlying delivery-system interventions (treatment theory) and the ways in which outcomes for different classes of individuals change over time are fundamental starting points for capturing the heterogeneity in samples of individuals exposed to delivery-system interventions. To support the research recommendations outlined in this paper and to advance understanding of the "why" and "how" questions of delivery-system change and their effects, funding agencies should consider supporting studies with larger organizational sample sizes; longer duration; and nontraditional, mixed-methods designs.A version of this paper was prepared under contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), US Department of Health and Human Services for presentation and discussion at a meeting on "The Challenge and Promise of Delivery System Research," held in Sterling, VA, on February 16-17, 2011. The opinions in the paper are those of the author and do not represent the views or recommendations of AHRQ or the US Department of Health and Human Services.1

CalculatingNeandNe/Nin age-structured populations: a hybrid Felsenstein-Hill approach

The concept of effective population size (Ne) was developed under a discrete-generation model, but most species have overlapping generations. In the early 1970s, J. Felsenstein and W. G. Hill independently developed methods for calculating Ne in age-structured populations; the two approaches produce the same answer under certain conditions and have contrasting advantages and disadvantages. Here, we describe a hybrid approach that combines useful features of both. Like Felsenstein's model, the new method is based on age-specific survival and fertility rates and therefore can be directly applied to any species for which life table data are available. Like Hill, we relax the restrictive assumption in Felsenstein's model regarding random variance in reproductive success, which allows more general application. The basic principle underlying the new method is that age structure stratifies a population into winners and losers in the game of life: individuals that live longer have more opportunities to reproduce and therefore have a higher mean lifetime reproductive success. This creates different classes of individuals within the population, and grouping individuals by age at death provides a simple means of calculating lifetime variance in reproductive success of a newborn cohort. The new method has the following features: (1) it can accommodate unequal sex ratio and sex-specific vital rates and overdispersed variance in reproductive success; (2) it can calculate effective size in species that change sex during their lifetime; (3) it can calculate Ne and the ratio Ne/N based on various ways of defining N; (4) it allows one to explore the relationship between Ne and the effective number of breeders per year (Nb), which is a quantity that genetic estimators of contemporary Ne commonly provide information about; and (5) it is implemented in freely available software (AgeNe).

Spatial‐temporal stratifications in natural populations and how they affect understanding and estimation of effective population size

The concept of effective population size (N(e) ) is based on an elegantly simple idea which, however, rapidly becomes very complex when applied to most real-world situations. In natural populations, spatial and temporal stratifications create different classes of individuals with different vital rates, and this in turn affects (generally reduces) N(e) in complex ways. I consider how these natural stratifications influence our understanding of effective size and how to estimate it, and what the consequences are for conservation and management of natural populations. Important points that emerge include the following: 1 The relative influences of local vs metapopulation N(e) depend on a variety of factors, including the time frame of interest. 2 Levels of diversity in local populations are strongly influenced by even low levels of migration, so these measures are not reliable indicators of local N(e) . 3 For long-term effective size, obtaining a reliable estimate of mutation rate is the most important consideration; unless this is accomplished, estimates can be biased by orders of magnitude. 4 At least some estimators of contemporary N(e) appear to be robust to relatively high (approximately 10%) equilibrium levels of migration, so under many realistic scenarios they might yield reliable estimates of local N(e) . 5 Age structure probably has little effect on long-term estimators of N(e) but can strongly influence contemporary estimates. 6 More research is needed in several key areas: (i) to disentangle effects of selection and drift in metapopulations connected by intermediate levels of migration; (ii) to elucidate the relationship between N(b) (effective number of breeders per year) and N(e) per generation in age-structured populations; (iii) to perform rigorous sensitivity analyses of new likelihood and coalescent-based methods for estimating demographic and evolutionary histories.

Vocal, gestural and locomotor responses of wild chimpanzees to familiar and unfamiliar intruders: a playback study

Wild chimpanzees can be dangerously violent against individuals that do not belong to their community, indicating a strong selection pressure on decision-making abilities in this context. The presence of a neighbouring male indicates a serious threat, although encountering an unfamiliar male is potentially even more dangerous because it indicates the arrival of a new group with whom the subjects have no previous history of interaction. We conducted playback experiments with members of three chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes verus, communities in the TaiNational Park, Cote d'Ivoire, in which we simulated the unexpected presence of another chimpanzee. We tested subjects' responses to pant hoots of familiar group members, neighbouring individuals and unfamiliar strangers. We found that neighbours and strangers elicited a wider range of gestural signals than familiar group members. Vocal responses were common in all conditions. Familiar group members mainly triggered pant hoot replies, whereas neighbour and stranger trials caused screams. Across conditions, males responded more strongly than females. Male party size had an effect on subjects' vocal responses to strangers but not to neighbours, although neighbours were approached more closely. Our results show that chimpanzees are able to identify different classes of individuals by their pant hoot vocalizations, as judged by their differential responses to the calls of familiar group members, neighbours or strangers. The overall response patterns suggest that chimpanzees are aware of the different social consequences associated with encountering a neighbouring group or a group of strangers. 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multiple Levels of Recognition in Ants: A Feature of Complex Societies

Communication and recognition are essential for social life. Social insects are good model systems to study social behavior and complexity because their societies are evolutionarily stable and ecologically successful. Ants, in particular, show a large variety of adaptations and are extremely diverse. In ants, social interactions are regulated by at least three levels of recognition. Nestmate recognition occurs between colonies, is very effective, and involves fast processing. Within a colony, division of labor is enhanced by recognition of different classes of individuals. Ultimately, in particular circumstances, such as cooperative colony founding with stable dominance hierarchies, ants are capable of individual recognition. The underlying recognition cues and mechanisms appear to be specific to each recognition level, and their integrated understanding could contribute to the identification of the minimum requirements for the emergence of sociality.

Vive le difference! Sexual dimorphism and adaptive patterns in lizards of the genus Anolis

The repeated, convergent evolution of body shape and microhabitat use in Greater Antillean lizards of the genus Anolis (anoles) provides compelling evidence of the importance of microhabitat specialization in shaping morphology. Interestingly, sexual dimorphism is also extensive, with males and females differing in body size as well as in shape. It is important to note that the components of shape analyzed in these studies is related to locomotion and are size-adjusted, including: relative limb and body lengths and mass of the body. Numbers of lamellae were also used and these do not vary with size. Furthermore, dimorphism in both size and shape differs by habitat type. Thus, does functionally-relevant sexual dimorphism imply that one sex is the "ecological" sex, with the other being maladapted to it's environment? Alternatively, sexual dimorphism may interact with adaptive diversification. Different classes of individuals within a species may act as separate ecological units if they play ecologically different roles. Here, I reanalyze a data set of morphological data for 15 species of Puerto Rican and Jamaican Anolis, which represent two largely independent adaptive radiations of lizards. I test for concordance between size and shape dimorphism and microhabitat (ecomorph) type, and for "parallel" patterns of sexual dimorphism among species. I integrate these results and, in the light of previous research, evaluate the relative influence that larger-scale ecological patterns have on sexual dimorphism, as well as the influence of sexual dimorphism on community structuring. I conclude that the presence of ecologically-relevant dimorphism may in fact increase the adaptive diversity present within a community.

Stochastic networks with multiple stable points

This paper analyzes stochastic networks consisting of a set of finite capacity sites where different classes of individuals move according to some routing policy. The associated Markov jump processes are analyzed under a thermodynamic limit regime, that is, when the networks have some symmetry properties and when the number of nodes goes to infinity. An intriguing stability property is proved: under some conditions on the parameters, it is shown that, in the limit, several stable equilibrium points coexist for the empirical distribution. The key ingredient of the proof of this property is a dimension reduction achieved by the introduction of two energy functions and a convenient mapping of their local minima and saddle points. Networks with a unique equilibrium point are also presented.