Evolution Of New Types Research Articles

Neurotransmitters of sleep and wakefulness in flatworms.

Study ObjectivesSleep is a prominent behavioral and biochemical state observed in all animals studied, including platyhelminth flatworms. Investigations into the biochemical mechanisms associated with sleep—and wakefulness—are important for understanding how these states are regulated and how that regulation changed with the evolution of new types of animals. Unfortunately, beyond a handful of vertebrates, such studies on invertebrates are rare.MethodsWe investigated the effect of seven neurotransmitters, and one pharmacological compound, that modulate either sleep or wakefulness in mammals, on flatworms (Girardia tigrina). Flatworms were exposed via ingestion and diffusion to four neurotransmitters that promote wakefulness in vertebrates (acetylcholine, dopamine, glutamate, histamine), and three that induce sleep (adenosine, GABA, serotonin) along with the H1 histamine receptor antagonist pyrilamine. Compounds were administered over concentrations spanning three to five orders of magnitude. Flatworms were then transferred to fresh water and video recorded for analysis.ResultsDopamine and histamine decreased the time spent inactive and increased distance traveled, consistent with their wake-promoting effect in vertebrates and fruit flies; pyrilamine increased restfulness and GABA showed a nonsignificant trend towards promoting restfulness in a dose-dependent manner, in agreement with their sleep-inducing effect in vertebrates, fruit flies, and Hydra. Similar to Hydra, acetylcholine, glutamate, and serotonin, but also adenosine, had no apparent effect on flatworm behavior.ConclusionsThese data demonstrate the potential of neurotransmitters to regulate sleep and wakefulness in flatworms and highlight the conserved action of some neurotransmitters across species.

B2B or B2C dilemma in maintenance industry: UrbanKare

Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are as follows: assessing the changing trend in the needs of the customer, leading to evolution of new types of businesses in the urban areas. Deep understanding of household service industry and its future. Assessing the skills and capabilities required to become an entrepreneur and follow entrepreneurship. Understanding the aggregator, two-sided business model prevailing in the market. Understand the concept of business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) business model in household industry. Case overview/synopsis This case study is about two first-generation entrepreneurs from India who started a new innovative service delivery platform, UrbanKare with a vision to organize the household maintenance services industry. The company was founded in 2016 with a seed capital support of the State Government. The idea behind this initiative was to provide customers a professional, reliable and convenient household repair and maintenance services at their fingertips. The biggest challenge they were facing was that of aggregation of service providers (skilled workforce) and maintaining the service quality in the context of B2B and B2C service provision. Complexity academic level PG level courses – Industrial Marketing Startup and Business Entrepreneurship. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Traditional organizations and crisis management in transition—Organizational perspectives on new dynamics of independent civil engagement

AbstractDigitalization and the trend towards more short‐term and project‐oriented social engagement have had a direct impact on traditional crisis management. This societal change has supported the evolution of new types of volunteers who use low‐threshold potentials to organize and maintain support independently. Traditional institutions like the German Red Cross are challenged to deal with these rapid changes regarding their own organizational culture in relation to the new phenomenon of so‐called unaffiliated volunteers. This paper investigates how unaffiliated volunteers influence and change the organizational culture of German disaster management by analysing and reflecting organizational adaptation processes in the aftermath of the German floods in 2013, the storm events in the west of Germany in 2014 and the refugee relief mission in 2015–2016. Therefore, semi‐structured interviews with experts of the German Red Cross were held to analyse their reactions towards unaffiliated Volunteers during the Floods in 2013 and the refugee relief missions, and further focus group interviews were conducted to validate the extracted results. Findings suggest that among professionals and leading entities in the German Red Cross, a process of rethinking has emerged, recognizing the importance and necessity to open up organizational structures for the collaboration and coordination of unaffiliated volunteers.

Evolution of altruistic cooperation among nascent multicellular organisms.

Cooperation is a classic solution to hostile environments that limit individual survival. In extreme cases this may lead to the evolution of new types of biological individuals (e.g., eusocial super-organisms). We examined the potential for interindividual cooperation to evolve via experimental evolution, challenging nascent multicellular "snowflake yeast" with an environment in which solitary multicellular clusters experienced low survival. In response, snowflake yeast evolved to form cooperative groups composed of thousands of multicellular clusters that typically survive selection. Group formation occurred through the creation of protein aggregates, only arising in strains with high (>2%) rates of cell death. Nonetheless, it was adaptive and repeatable, although ultimately evolutionarily unstable. Extracellular protein aggregates act as a common good, as they can be exploited by cheats that do not contribute to aggregate production. These results highlight the importance of group formation as a mechanism for surviving environmental stress, and underscore the remarkable ease with which even simple multicellular entities may evolve-and lose-novel social traits.

New Innovating Processes of Rock Disintegration

Over the past years, deep drilling technology developed quickly. New technologies better quality of drilling work and accelerated the drilling process. At present, 20-25% are new techniques while 75-80% drilling methods used worldwide are traditional. Slovakia is quite at the rear of this tendency: our utilization ration shows 95-98% traditional drilling methods, in comparison to only 2-5% new ones. Advancement of new deep well boring technologies causes the evolution of new types of drilling sets for deep drilling (depending on applied techniques). Techniques used have a mechanical and physical impact for drilling of rock. Several tests and analyses of disintegration and drilling methods were performed over the last years. The article focuses on a description of the working principle and utilization possibilities.

Election Media and Youth Political Engagement

Election campaigns are regular opportunities for heightened political engagement and socialization. For many young people, politics becomes most visible and concrete during electoral contests. However, campaign media, at least in the United States, typically have not targeted young voters with messages that enhance their participation and turnout. In fact, much traditional election media coverage of youth has emphasized their lack of interest and involvement, and thus works to discourage the development of activist political orientations. With the evolution of new types of dynamic and populist media formats, such as blogs and social/political networking websites, young people have greater opportunities to establish a presence in election campaigns on their own terms. This piece will explore how new developments in campaign media are changing the relationship of young people to the electoral process.

Evolution of the control of sexual identity in nematodes

Most animals are male/female species and reproduce sexually. Variation in this pattern of reproduction has arisen many times during animal evolution, particularly in nematodes. Little is known about the evolutionary forces and constraints that influenced the origin of self-fertilization, for instance, a type of reproduction that seems to have evolved many times in the phylum Nematoda. Caenorhabditis elegans, a very well known nematode, provides the framework for comparative studies of sex determination. The relative ease with which nematodes can be studied in the laboratory and the fact that many recently developed techniques can be applied to many species make them attractive for comparative research. It is relatively poorly understood how the evolution of new types of sex determination and mode of reproduction results in changes in genome structure, ecology and population genetics. Here, I review the evolution of sex determination and mating types in the phylum Nematoda with the objective of providing a framework for future research.

Quasi-Independence, Homology and the Unity of Type: A Topological Theory of Characters

In this paper Lewontin’s notion of “quasi-independence” of characters is formalized as the assumption that a region of the phenotype space can be represented by a product space of orthogonal factors. In this picture each character corresponds to a factor of a region of the phenotype space. We consider any region of the phenotype space that has a given factorization as a “type”, i.e. as a set of phenotypes that share the same set of phenotypic characters. Using the notion of local factorizations we develop a theory of character identity based on the continuation of common factors among different regions of the phenotype space. We also consider the topological constraints on evolutionary transitions among regions with different regional factorizations, i.e. for the evolution of new types or body plans. It is shown that direct transition between different “types” is only possible if the transitional forms have all the characters that the ancestral and the derived types have and are thus compatible with the factorization of both types. Transitional forms thus have to go over a “complexity hump” where they have more quasi-independent characters than either the ancestral as well as the derived type. The only logical, but biologically unlikely, alternative is a “hopeful monster” that transforms in a single step from the ancestral type to the derived type. Topological considerations also suggest a new factor that may contribute to the evolutionary stability of “types”. It is shown that if the type is decomposable into factors which are vertex irregular (i.e. have states that are more or less preferred in a random walk), the region of phenotypes representing the type contains islands of strongly preferred states. In other words types have a statistical tendency of retaining evolutionary trajectories within their interior and thus add to the evolutionary persistence of types.

Business and Newly Emerging Civil Society Actors: Between Conflict and New Forms of Social Dialogue

Societal transformation processes are causing far-reaching changes in the relationship between businesses and society. The political, economic (information and communications), technological and cultural transfor mation processes lead to the evolution of new types of civil society actors. These necessarily increase the complexity of corporate environments and attempt directly or indirectly to influence their behaviour. Under these conditions, companies are increasingly forced to open up their own organizational boundaries to dia logue and, at the earliest possible stage, to include 'society' as a non-controllable variable. Along with an intensification of the direct relationships between companies and social action groups, a growing number of initiatives have recently evolved, which, often with the support of the state, attempt to create an institution alized dialogue between several companies, unions and non-government organizations (NGOs). The societal transformation processes that form the basis of these interactions as well as necessary and obstructive factors for the success of such multi-stakeholder dialogues will be analyzed in this article.

Morphological trends in Gondwana plants

The term Gondwana has recently been redefined to include the group of terrestrial rocks in the Indian Craton, that was initiated with a basal Permian glacigene epoch and terminated with the large hiatus at the top of the Triassic. The Gondwana Supergroup as redefined now comprises Talchir, Damuda, Panchet and Mahadeva groups and ranges in age from the earliest Permian to latest Triassic or earliest Jurassic (Venkatachala & Maheshwari, 1991).
 The vegetational scenario of Gondwana shows mixture of plants belonging to quite distinct habitats. The morphological adaptations of plants that thrived at all levels on land, in continental water, upland and in environments of exceeding dryness are significant. Leaf size varies from small to large with variety of apex and base, midribless to prominent midrib, non-petiolate to petiolate, veins loosely arranged, narrow mesh type of venation to open mesh and narrow mesh type. Leaf cuticle of glossopterids also shows variations.
 Most of the Gondwana woods show variation in pith and primary xylem and secondary xylem. Pith varies from homo- to hetero-cellular. Primary xylem shows variation from endarch to mesarch. The secondary xylem is pycnoxylic, homoxylous. Secondary xylem shows well-marked growth rings. There is a great variation in the pitting of secondary tracheids. Xylem rays vary from uni- to multi-seriate. The ray field-pits also show diversity.
 Wide diversities are also seen in the morphology of pteridophytic megaspores and of reproductive organs of gymnosperms. The exosporium of megaspore is either smooth or variously ornamented. The mesosporium is with or without cushions. Reproductive organs are known only for the glossopterid group and are of two types.
 The changing patterns in leaves, woods, megaspores and reproductive organs of Gondwana plants may provide significant data for charting of morphotrends in these organs. It can probably also be established if these morphotrends were ecologically controlled temporary and transient phase or were genetically controlled leading to evolution of new types.

ChemInform Abstract: Experimental Determination of Vapor‐Liquid Equilibrium; Normal and Low‐Pressure Region

AbstractReview: (advances during the past 25 years with emphasis on the improvement in the design of existing forms of stills and the evolution of new types.

Discharge lamps: some aspects of research and development

A review of discharge lamp developments over recent years shows that a reiterative process takes place between advances in fundamental understanding of discharge phenomena and problems revealed as new lamps find practical application. These two aspects of discharge lamp development govern the evolution of new types of lamps and are considered for low pressure sodium lamps, high pressure sodium lamps, fluorescent lamps, high pressure mercury lamps and metal halide lamps. It is apparent that research is as active on well-established types of discharge lamps as on the newer types.

Foraminifera from the green ammonite beds, lower lias, of Dorset

This paper is a contribution to the long-continued researches on the Dorset Lias by Dr W. D. Lang, F.R.S., who collected the described material. Some 700 mounted specimens from the Lower Lias ( davoei zone) of the Dorset coast have been studied. They are ascribed to six families, twenty genera, and fifty-five species; of these, eleven genera and forty-five species belong to the family Lagenidae. One genus and species, Carixia langi , and one other species, Lagena davoei , are described as new, and two new names are proposed to replace invalid names. There were studied for comparison certain of the few described English Lias faunas, some described French and German material, and a number of well-preserved but undescribed faunas from various Lias horizons and different English localities. This has yielded provisional evidence of the zonal ranges of the Dorset species. Some forms of Frondicularia were found to provide useful horizon markers. A tentative correlation is given of the zoning of the Lias by various authors of papers on Lias Foraminifera; there are notes on the horizons of some described Lias faunas, and a review of previous work on British Lias Foraminifera. Study of Jurassic Foraminifera has been comparatively neglected for many years, though there is a recent German revival. Some lengthy synonymies are therefore necessary. Certain less-known forms are discussed in detail; they were inadequately described and figured, so that they have hitherto been wrongly placed. It has thus been possible to rectify the systematic position or status of the genera Involutina, Problematina and Bullopora . The appearance in the Lias of Bolivina and Plectofrondicularia is demonstrated, genera usually stated not to occur in rocks of age earlier than the Cretaceous. Foraminifera thrived in the muddy Lias seas in whose clay deposits their shells are well preserved. There was a rapid evolution of new types, particularly of the predominating Lagenidae. In this family there appears to be wide variation within some of the groups, where neither ‘species’ nor even ‘genera’ are sharply defined. The bulk of the paper is taken up by the systematic description of the Foraminiferal fauna; all the recorded forms are figured. There is a reference list of some eighty-nine papers, mainly on Jurassic Foraminifera.