Environmental Traits Research Articles

Distributive fairness during the transition to adolescence: The role of peer comparison and social value orientation.

Combining the dictator game (DG) and the ultimatum game (UG), this study recruited 546 Chinese children (321 boys, aged 9-12 years) as distributors, and found that both peer comparison and social value orientation (SVO) significantly influenced children's distributive fairness from late childhood to early adolescence. Results showed that as the unfairness of peer proposals increased, participants decreased the amount of gold coins distributed to the receiver in both tasks, revealing a peer comparison effect. This effect was more pronounced for adolescents than for children in both tasks. In addition, participants' fair distribution behaviors in the DG showed a three-way interaction effect of SVO, grade, and peer comparison. Specifically, for proselfs, children were not influenced by peers and consistently proposed self-interested distributions, whereas adolescents exhibited a peer comparison effect; for prosocials, both children and adolescents were influenced by peers, but children decreased the amount of their distributions only when they saw peers make extremely unfair distributions, whereas adolescents decreased the amount of their distributions when they saw peers make both mildly and extremely unfair distributions. This study highlights the importance of social environment and personal trait in shaping children's fair distribution behavior during the transition from late childhood to early adolescence.

Daniel C. Laughlin: Plant Strategies—the demographic consequences of functional traits in changing environments

Daniel C. Laughlin: Plant Strategies—the demographic consequences of functional traits in changing environments

Variation in nest survival of three species of tropical plovers in Madagascar with clutch size, age of nest, year and El Niño effect.

A combination of life history traits and environmental conditions has been highlighted as the main drivers of avian breeding success. While drivers of breeding success are well known in some species, especially birds in northern, temperate regions; species in other parts of the world have received relatively little attention. In this study, we used a long-term dataset on breeding success of tropical plovers from south-west Madagascar to investigate whether nest survival changed over time and whether the drivers of nest survival were similar for multiple species breeding in the same arid habitat. In the 12-year period of 2009-2020, we monitored 2077 nests for three species with different breeding strategies: 1185 nests of Kittlitz's plovers (Anarhynchus pecuarius) with a flexible breeding strategy and uniparental care; and 565 nests of white-fronted plovers (A. marginatus) and 327 nests of Madagascar plovers (A. thoracicus) which both have biparental care. We found that nest survival was associated with a combination of clutch-size, age of nest and year among the three plover species. In addition, annual variation in climatic conditions associated with El Niño/La Niña events were included in the most supported survival models for Kittlitz's and white-fronted plovers, but the effects were not significant. Overall estimates of daily nest survival were similar for all three species: Kittlitz's plover: 0.950 ± 0.002 SE, Madagascar plover: 0.919 ± 0.007 SE, and white-fronted plover: 0.862 ± 0.047 SE. Estimates of nest success for the breeding season, based on increases in daily nest survival with the clutch age during the incubation periods (26 days for Kittlitz's plovers and 29 days for Madagascar and white-fronted plovers), were relatively low: Kittlitz's plover: 0.161 ± 0.056 SE, Madagascar plover: 0.287 ± 0.022 SE, and white-fronted plover: 0.228 ± 0.019 SE. All three species had a combination of factors affecting nest survival, both environmental and life history traits.

A novel approach for application classification with encrypted traffic using BERT and packet headers

Recent years have seen substantial advancements in Internet technology along with environmental changes, which have led to the emergence of various security issues. There is also a trend of explosive growth in applications that encrypt network traffic for various types of services. Therefore, the classification of applications within encrypted traffic represents an important research issue for both secure network management and efficient bandwidth management. In such encrypted traffic, the payload itself is encrypted, and it is no longer viable to classify applications based on signatures extracted from plaintext. Most applications in public datasets for encrypted traffic classification are collected with the same IP address and port number, which makes the 5-tuple information a strong identifier. However, this 5-tuple contains many characteristics related to both the traffic collection environment and user-specific traits, rather than intrinsic features of the applications themselves. Therefore, when addressing the problem of encrypted traffic application classification, it is advisable to utilize header information excluding the 5-tuple and payload. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel service type and application classification system based on the Bidirectional Encoding Representation Transformer (BERT), which utilizes packet header information from encrypted traffic. The proposed system ensures the accuracy and generalization performance of the classification model by using only the header information from traffic packets, excluding the 5-tuple and payload. Further, to preserve the characteristics and semantic meaning of an encrypted traffic packet, sentences embedded with 2-byte tokens were used as input for BERT. The proposed system was designed to exclude labeling information from all sentences during the pre-training phase before proceeding with training. Fine-tuning was then conducted to align the system with the objectives of the service type and application classification. This experiment utilized the publicly available ISCX VPN-nonVPN dataset, and the proposed model achieved remarkable accuracy in the key performance measure, i.e., F1-scores, with values of 99.24 % in service type classification and 98.74 % in application classification. This capability can be used in maintaining the confidentiality of encrypted traffic, network security monitoring, Quality of Service (QoS), and traffic management in complex IT environments.

Improving Fire Detection Accuracy through Enhanced Convolutional Neural Networks and Contour Techniques.

In this study, a novel method combining contour analysis with deep CNN is applied for fire detection. The method was made for fire detection using two main algorithms: one which detects the color properties of the fires, and another which analyzes the shape through contour detection. To overcome the disadvantages of previous methods, we generate a new labeled dataset, which consists of small fire instances and complex scenarios. We elaborated the dataset by selecting regions of interest (ROI) for enhanced fictional small fires and complex environment traits extracted through color characteristics and contour analysis, to better train our model regarding those more intricate features. Results of the experiment showed that our improved CNN model outperformed other networks. The accuracy, precision, recall and F1 score were 99.4%, 99.3%, 99.4% and 99.5%, respectively. The performance of our new approach is enhanced in all metrics compared to the previous CNN model with an accuracy of 99.4%. In addition, our approach beats many other state-of-the-art methods as well: Dilated CNNs (98.1% accuracy), Faster R-CNN (97.8% accuracy) and ResNet (94.3%). This result suggests that the approach can be beneficial for a variety of safety and security applications ranging from home, business to industrial and outdoor settings.

Relationships between environmental variables and fish functional groups in impounded reaches of the Upper Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers

Large rivers throughout the world have been transformed by anthropogenic stressors that are known to influence the structure and composition of fish assemblages. Management of large rivers requires balancing socio-economic and political considerations with biodiversity conservation efforts. By exchanging best management practices between rivers, management efforts can be improved. However, data limitations have largely prevented comparative analyses among fish assemblages in large rivers, potentially limiting the effectiveness of shared management strategies. To improve understanding of the similarities and differences between the Upper Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers, we (1) compared environmental variables and functional traits of fish assemblages between the two systems, (2) identified traits responsible for distinguishing functional groups from one another, and (3) investigated relationships between similar functional groups of fishes and environmental variables to establish expectations for how fish assemblages in large rivers might respond to anthropogenic stressors. Regional species pools in the Upper Mississippi and Upper Yangtze Rivers were characterized by a similar composition of functional traits; the majority of species were omnivorous, had affinities for gravel or sand substrates, and produced sinking eggs. Few species were pelagic, planktivorous, or herbivorous. Functional groups in both rivers were primarily distinguished according to species' trophic habits and substrate preferences, with secondary contributions from species’ water column positions and life history characteristics. Pelagic planktivores and small-bodied guarders with an affinity for structural habitat complexity tended to increase downriver in both systems, in direct association with total phosphorus concentrations, agricultural land use, and temperature. In contrast, proportions of lithophilic species with affinities for gravel or cobble substrates were highest in segments located furthest upriver. By highlighting the sensitivity of different groups of fishes to anthropogenic stressors, we provide insights into the functional ecology of fishes inhabiting the Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers.

Runs of homozygosity analysis and genomic inbreeding estimation in Sumba Ongole cattle (Bos indicus) using a BovineSNP50K BeadChip.

Runs of homozygosity (ROH) is a biocomputational technique for identifying homozygous regions in the genomics of livestock. This study aimed to determine the ROH in Sumba Ongole (SO) bulls (n = 48) using the BovineSNP50K BeadChip. GenomeStudio 2.0 software was used to generate the BovineSNP50K BeadChip output. The ROH and ROH-based inbreeding coefficients (FROH) were determined using the detect RUNS R v4.1.0 package. Using the following filtering criteria, PLINK v1.90 software was used to perform genotype quality control: (1) Individuals and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) had call rates >0.95; (2) more than 0.05 was the minor allele frequency; (3) the list contained only SNPs linked to autosomes; and (4) SNPs that strongly deviated (p < 1e-6) from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were removed. Subsequently, 25,252 autosomal SNP markers were included in the ROH and FROH analyses. In general, the number and length of ROH segments in pool animals were 149.77 ± 16.02 Mb and 486.13 ± 156.11 Mb, respectively. Furthermore, the ROH segments in the animals under study can be discriminated into two classes of 1-4 Mb (83.33%) and 4-8 Mb (16.67%). Subsequently, Bos taurus autosomes (BTA) 1, BTA6, and BTA14 had significant homozygous segments comprising 13 genes. Despite this, the average FROH in pool animals was 0.20 ± 0.06. These findings indicate that a recent inbreeding event in SO cattle occurred many generations ago. Furthermore, the candidate genes identified from the ROH analysis indicate phenotypic attributes associated with environmental adaptation and economic traits.

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN INNATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL TRAITS AND THE ATTITUDES` ASSESSMENT TOWARD ACTIVE LISTENING AMONG EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS

ABSTRACT The aim of the study is to examine the correlation between innate (neuroticism and openness) and environmental (self-esteem and emotional regulation strategies) personality traits and the attitudes` assessment toward active listening (AL) among early childhood educators in Israel. Accordingly, this study presents a multipath analysis model exploring the correlations between all those variables. In this study, AL was evaluated using the active listening attitude scale (ALAS) questionnaire, which measures a person-centered attitude through three key factors: “listening attitude,” which identifies values that support active listening; “listening skill,” which represents the technical expression of active listening; and “conversation opportunity,” which identifies listening situations conducive to AL. AL is perceived as an interpersonal communication skill that encourages listeners to integrate multi-sensory and cognitive processes to produce positive and supportive outcomes. To facilitate AL, listeners should be emotionally stable, well-regulated, and possess high self-esteem. Early educators have a decisive influence on children’s behavior, so this study examines personality traits and the educators’ perception toward active listening. A survey conducted among 390 early childhood educators, both female and male, indicated that both innate and environmental emotional traits correlate with two major factors of AL: “listening attitude” and “listening skill.” The path analysis model supports the perception that an effective and supportive listener must have a stable, open and curious emotional foundation, along with emotional regulation skills and high self-esteem.

The morphological and functional traits of water bodies enhance the explanatory power of directed spatial processes in predicting the variation of macrophyte communities under the conditions of river flow regulation

AbstractThe study evaluated the influence of aquatic environmental features, morphological and functional traits of water bodies and directional spatial processes on the macrophyte community of floodplain ecosystems formed as a result of water flow regulation by the construction of dams. The fluvial processes were found to be still the main factor in the formation of geomorphological and ecological characteristics of floodplain ecosystems, and also determine the spatial patterns of variability of aquatic macrophyte communities. The influence of water properties on macrophytes is significantly spatially structured, as it is modified by the morphological and functional characteristics of the water bodies. The exchange of water in the floodplain system is influenced by the functional types of water bodies, which explains their significant correlation with spatial variables. The development of macrophyte communities on a broad scale is driven by the characteristics of the aquatic environment, the morphology of the water bodies and the functional types of the water bodies. On a fine scale, the patterns are described by a pure spatial component. The impact of fine scale patterns on the variability of macrophyte communities increases with increasing community disturbance, both natural and anthropogenic.

Deciphering Pteronia's evolution in the Cape Floristic Region: A comprehensive study disputes polyploid deficiency and affirms diploid radiation.

The Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) is renowned for its exceptional biodiversity, accommodating over 11 000 plant species, notable degree of endemism, and substantial diversification within limited plant lineages, a phenomenon ascribed to historical radiation events. While both abiotic and biotic factors contribute to this diversification, comprehensive genomic alterations, recognized as pivotal in the diversification of angiosperms, are perceived as uncommon. This investigation focuses on the genus Pteronia, a prominent representative of the Asteraceae family in the GCFR. Employing NGS-based HybSeq and RADSeq methodologies, flow cytometry, karyology, and ecological modeling, we scrutinize the intricacies of its polyploid evolution. Phylogenetic reconstructions using 951 low-copy nuclear genes confirm Pteronia as a well-supported, distinct clade within the tribe Astereae. The ingroup displays a structure indicative of rapid radiation likely antedating polyploid establishment, with the two main groups demarcated by their presence or absence in the fynbos biome. Genome size analysis encompasses 1293 individuals across 347 populations, elucidating significant variation ranging from 6.1 to 34.2 pg (2C-value). Pteronia demonstrates substantially large genome sizes within Astereae and phanerophytes. Polyploidy is identified in 31% of the studied species, with four discerned ploidy levels (2x, 4x, 6x, 8x). Cytotypes exhibit marked distinctions in environmental traits, influencing their distribution across biomes and augmenting their niche differentiation. These revelations challenge the presumed scarcity of polyploidy in the Cape flora, underscoring the imperative need for detailed population studies. The intricate evolutionary history of Pteronia, characterized by recent polyploidy and genome size variation, contributes substantially to the comprehension of diversification patterns within the GCFR biodiversity hotspot.

CEO characteristics and R&amp;D expenditure of IPOs in China

In the rapidly evolving landscape of Mainland China's stock market, there is a substantial correlation between the research and development (R&amp;D) spending of companies that are going through initial public offerings (IPOs) and the characteristics of the CEO. This study aims to investigate how CEO traits influence the allocation of resources towards R&amp;D activities within the context of IPOs in Mainland China. The CEO plays a pivotal role in shaping the strategic direction and innovation agenda of companies, especially during the IPO process where firms seek to raise capital and expand their operations. Policymakers must comprehend the influence of CEO attributes on research and development spending, investors, and managers seeking to foster innovation and sustainable growth in Mainland Chinese firms. This research will focus on analyzing CEO traits such as educational background, prior experience, age, tenure, risk aversion, and management style, and their influence on the decision-making process regarding R&amp;D investment. This study intends to determine significant links between R&amp;D expenditure and characteristics of CEOs by looking at a sample of IPOs in the stock market of Mainland China. The analysis takes into account many factors like industry competition, market dynamics, regulatory environment, and firm-specific traits. Data on CEO traits, company finances, and R&amp;D spending will be analysed using quantitative techniques like regression analysis and event research procedures. Furthermore, qualitative research techniques like case studies and interviews will offer deeper understandings of the contextual elements influencing the IPO market in Mainland China as well as the mechanisms underpinning these linkages. All things considered, this study will advance knowledge of how CEO traits affect R&amp;D spending in the particular setting of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the stock market of Mainland China. The findings will offer valuable insights for policymakers, investors, and managers navigating the complexities of fostering innovation and sustainable growth in Mainland Chinese firms undergoing IPOs.

Prestige bias in cultural evolutionary dynamics.

If the traits of more successful individuals are more likely to be adopted, the resulting cultural transmission is described as success biased. In contrast, if the traits of 'prestigious' individuals-those who have already been copied many times-are more likely to be adopted, this is described as prestige-biased cultural transmission. In this case, prestige can be a convenient proxy for success. However, it is unclear how success and prestige biases interact to determine the outcome of cultural evolutionary dynamics. Here, we aim to clarify this using mathematical analysis and stochastic simulations. We find analytic approximations to the stochastic role-model choice process that facilitate the mathematical analysis and reduce the computational complexity of simulations. Approximations are given to the fixation probability and the fixation time of an invading cultural trait in different environments. Our results show that success bias effectively plays the role of natural selection, whereas prestige bias effectively plays the role of genetic drift. Prestige bias, which may be strong in highly social communities, also accelerates the evolutionary dynamics, as expected in a rich-get-richer process. These results signify a step forward in understanding how different cultural transmission biases interact.

Impact of Work Discipline on Organizational Performance: The Moderating Role of Organizational Culture in Pakistan

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between work discipline and organizational performance, with a specific focus on the moderating role of organizational culture within Pakistan's textile industry. The study aims to understand how work discipline and organizational culture impact the performance of textile firms in this context. Data was analyzed using SPSS, employing descriptive statistics as well as factor and regression analyses. A questionnaire utilizing a Likert scale was used to gather data from the Punjab textile sector, with purposive sampling applied. While the research initially targeted 230 participants, 203 responses were ultimately analyzed. The results reveal a strong and positive correlation between work discipline, organizational culture, and organizational performance. Specifically, work discipline is positively associated with improved organizational performance. Furthermore, organizational culture is shown to positively influence performance, highlighting its role in moderating the relationship between work discipline and performance. These findings underscore the significant impact of both work discipline and organizational culture on enhancing organizational outcomes. In conclusion, organizational culture plays a critical moderating role, amplifying the positive effects of work discipline on organizational performance. Future research should explore additional factors that may influence employee performance, including managerial support, work environment, job satisfaction, and individual personality traits. It is also recommended that future studies be guided by current literature and consider aspects of organizational commitment.

Soil-plant-gall relationships: from gall development to ecological patterns.

The adaptive nature of the galler habit has been tentatively explained by the nutrition, microenvironment, and enemy hypotheses. Soil attributes have direct relationships with these three hypotheses at the cellular and macroecological scales, but their influence has been restricted previously to effects on the nutritional status of the host plant on gall richness and abundance. Herein, we discuss the ionome patterns within gall tissues and their significance for gall development, physiology, structure, and for the nutrition of the gallers. Previous ecological and chemical quantification focused extensively on nitrogen and carbon contents, evoking the carbon-nutrient defence hypothesis as an explanation for establishing the plant-gall interaction. Different elements are involved in cell wall composition dynamics, antioxidant activity, and regulation of plant-gall water dynamics. An overview of the different soil-plant-gall relationships highlights the complexity of the nutritional requirements of gallers, which are strongly influenced by environmental soil traits. Soil and plant chemical profiles interact to determine the outcome of plant-herbivore interactions and need to be addressed by considering not only the soil features and galler nutrition but also the host plant's physiological traits. The quantitative and qualitative results for iron metabolism in gall tissues, as well as the roles of iron as an essential element in the physiology and reproduction of gallers suggest that it may represent a key nutritional resource, aligning with the nutrition hypothesis, and providing an integrative explanation for higher gall diversity in iron-rich soils.

Temporal patterns of gut microbiota in lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer) living in intact and disturbed habitats in a novel sample type.

The gut microbiome is a plastic phenotype; gut microbial composition is highly variable across an individual host's lifetime and between host social groups, and this variation has consequences for host health. However, we do not yet fully understand how longitudinal microbial dynamics and their social drivers may be influenced by ecological stressors, such as habitat degradation. Answering these questions is difficult in most wild animal systems, as it requires long-term collections of matched host, microbiome, and environmental trait data. To test if temporal and social influences on microbiome composition differ by the history of human disturbance, we leveraged banked, desiccated fecal samples collected over 5 months in 2004 from two ecologically distinct populations of wild, red-bellied lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer) that are part of a long-term study system. We found that social group explained more variation in microbiome composition than host population membership did, and that temporal variation in common microbial taxa was similar between populations, despite differences in history of human disturbance. Furthermore, we found that social group membership and collection month were both more important than individual lemur identity. Taken together, our results suggest that synchronized environments use can lead to synchronized microbial dynamics over time, even between habitats of varying quality, and that desiccated samples could become a viable approach for studying primate gut microbiota. Our work opens the door for other projects to utilize historic biological sample data sets to answer novel temporal microbiome questions in an ecological context.

Environmental Response of Tree Species Distribution in Northeast China with the Joint Species Distribution Model

The composition, distribution, and growth of native natural forests are important references for the restoration, structural adjustment, and close-to-nature transformation of artificial forests. The joint species distribution model is a powerful tool for analyzing community structure and interspecific relationships. It has been widely used in biogeography, community ecology, and animal ecology, but it has not been extended to natural forest conservation and restoration in China. Therefore, based on the 9th National Forest Inventory data in Jilin Province, combined with environmental factors and functional traits of tree species, this study adopted the joint species distribution model—including a model with all variables (model FULL), a model with environmental factors (model ENV), and a model with spatial factors (model SPACE)—to examine the distribution of multiple tree species. The results show that, in models FULL and ENV, the environmental factors explaining the model variation were ranked as follows, climate &gt; site &gt; soil. The explanatory power was as follows: model FULL (AUC = 0.8325, Tjur R2 = 0.2326) &gt; model ENV (AUC = 0.7664, Tjur R2 = 0.1454) &gt; model SPACE (AUC = 0.7297, Tjur R2 = 0.1346). Tree species niches in model ENV were similar to those in model FULL. Compared to predictive power, we found that the information transmitted by environmental and spatial predictors overlaps, so the choice between model FULL and ENV should be based on the purpose of the model, rather than the difference in predictive ability. Both models can be used to study the adaptive distribution of multiple tree species in northeast China.

Gastric Cancer Genetics and Its Implications for Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment of the Disease

Gastric cancer (GC) is an aggressive disease and the fifth most common cancer worldwide with a variable geographical distribution. GC has a very low survival rate, mainly because of its heterogeneous presentation, multifactorial etiology, and late diagnosis. It is well established that various risk factors contribute to the development of the disease, including salty diet, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption. Importantly, interactions between genetic and environmental traits trigger the activation of key signaling pathways, influencing gastric cell behavior towards neoplastic transformation and progression. Despite important advances in our understanding of GC, it remains a major health burden owing to epidemiological and therapeutic limitations. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the genetic landscape of GC phenotypes and molecular biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis. In particular, we discuss the advances in genomic knowledge and technology that have yielded comprehensive information on the genetics of GC and classified it from a histological to a molecular perspective. Therefore, targeted and immune-based therapies have been developed, highlighting the challenges associated with intratumoral and interpatient heterogeneity. Finally, we explored potential research avenues on the intricacies of GC and identified accurate biomarkers for improved cancer screening and stratification. The development of innovative approaches to tackle relevant molecules is needed for GC management.

Dendropsophus minutus repertoire complexity and its relationship with environmental traits

ABSTRACT Anurans have several characteristics in their acoustic communication that distinguish them. These characteristics are influenced by body-related, environmental and social variables. However, the complexity of anuran repertoire and the effect of such variables on it are still understudied. Dendropsophus minutus is a Neotropical treefrog that has a wide repertoire composed of three notes, grouped in at least 71 unique combinations. To quantify complexity, we used the entropy measurement, since it measures the randomness of a sequence. Therefore, we could test if repertoire complexity in D. minutus is related with body condition, social context, and environmental variables. We recorded vocalisations of 80 males in three sites and found 44 unique note combinations not described before, increasing the species’ repertoire to 115 combinations. We observed that the species has near maximum entropy for note frequency, but a low entropy for note sequencies, showing a clear a bias for some note combinations. We found a positive relationship between repertoire complexity and air temperature. Thus, based on our results, the complexity of this species’ repertoire is an additional trait influenced by climate, and should be considered in future studies.

Leadership of Normal Students in a Selected University in China

Normal students are a special group in the field of China education. They are quasi teachers specially trained by universities for basic education. Their leadership vary significantly depending on their major. The educational ecological environment, including social environment, university environment, family environment, and individual traits, has a significant impact on their leadership. Universities need to create a good educational environment and develop improvement plans based on professional characteristics to enhance the leadership of normal students.

Understanding eco-anxiety: exploring relationships with environmental trait affects, connectedness to nature, depression, anxiety, and media exposure

Understanding eco-anxiety: exploring relationships with environmental trait affects, connectedness to nature, depression, anxiety, and media exposure