Obvious Costs Research Articles

Genetic basis of resistance to Cry1Ac in Rachiplusia nu (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae): inheritance mode, cross-resistance patterns and fitness cost.

Rachiplusia nu (Guenée) was historically a secondary soybean pest in Brazil, but a key soybean pest in Argentina. From 2021 onwards, injury caused by R. nu has been reported in soybean that expresses the Cry1Ac toxin from Bacillus thuringiensis (Berliner) in both countries. In this study, we selected resistant and susceptible strains of R. nu to Cry1Ac using Cry1Ac-containing leaf tissue and characterized the inheritance of resistance, cross-resistance patterns and fitness cost. Neonates of the Cry1Ac-resistant strain of R. nu were able to develop on Cry1Ac soybean leaves and emerge as fertile adults, while neonates from the susceptible and heterozygous strains did not survive beyond 10 days. The resistance ratio to Cry1Ac estimated in diet-overlay bioassays in the resistant strain was > 736.92-fold. The inheritance pattern of Cry1Ac resistance in R. nu was characterized as autosomal recessive and monogenic. The Cry1Ac-resistant strain of R. nu also exhibited high resistance to Cry1A.105 (resistance ratio > 159.87-fold), but negligible resistance to Cry2Ab2 (resistance ratio = 1.25-fold). Life history data showed that the resistance to Cry1Ac in R. nu is not associated with a substantial fitness cost. The inheritance pattern of Cry1Ac resistance in R. nu is autosomal recessive, monogenic and not associated with obvious fitness costs. Cross-resistance occurred between Cry1Ac and Cry1A.105 in R. nu but not between Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab2, indicating that Cry1A.105/Cry2Ab2/Cry1Ac soybean is a valuable tool to manage Cry1Ac resistance in R. nu. This is the first study reporting the genetic basis of Cry1Ac resistance in R. nu. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The excessive everyday life of the GULAG special settlements in 1933: the Siberian dimension

The review is devoted to the documentary collection “Special (labor) settlements of Western Siberia in 1933: everyday life of the commandant’s settlements, the Nazi tragedy,” compiled by S.A. Krasilnikov and O.V. Filippenko. It publishes more than 80 documents, full of valuable information about the intentions and results of the exile settlement policy. Documents identified in the State Archive of the Novosibirsk Region, the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation and the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia paint a vivid picture of the unsuccessful penal colonization of the Narym north in the early 1930s. This was an unexpected result for the authorities of efforts to cleanse the cities of the central part of the country and border areas from “déclassé elements.” The documents provide an opportunity to look into the everyday life of two worlds of a special settlement – peasant and urban “déclassé”. It follows from them that constant “excesses,” despite their obvious costs, acted as a routine accompaniment of the most important management actions. The central government considered countless “ordinary” criminal actions on the ground (illegal arrests, expulsions, confiscations against peasants and all kinds of “former people”) as necessary, designed to push the layers unnecessary to socialism to the margins of life. A closed hierarchical system based on the directives of the center gave rise to and developed the arbitrariness of the performers, embodied in published documents.

RNA m6 A Methylation Suppresses Insect Juvenile Hormone Degradation to Minimize Fitness Costs in Response to A Pathogenic Attack.

Bioinsecticides and transgenic crops based on the bacterial pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) can effectively control diverse agricultural insect pests, nevertheless, the evolution of resistance without obvious fitness costs has seriously eroded the sustainable use of these Bt products. Recently, it has been discovered that an increased titer of juvenile hormone (JH) favors an insect host (Plutella xylostella) to enhance fitness whilst resisting the Bt pathogen, however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms of the increased JH titer are obscure. Here, the involvement of N6 -methyladenosine (m6 A) RNA modification in modulating the availability of JH in this process is defined. Specifically, it is found that two m6 A methyltransferase subunit genes, PxMettl3 and PxMettl14, repress the expression of a key JH-degrading enzyme JH esterase (JHE) to induce an increased JH titer, mitigating the fitness costs associated with a robust defense against the Bt pathogen. This study identifies an as-yet uncharacterized m6 A-mediated epigenetic regulator of insect hormones for maintaining fitness during pathogen defense and unveils an emerging Bt resistance-related m6 A methylation atlas in insects, which further expands the functional landscape of m6 A modification and showcases the pivotal role of epigenetic regulation in host-pathogen interactions.

Resistance development, cross-resistance, and fitness costs associated with Aphis gossypii resistance towards sulfoxaflor and acetamiprid in different geographical regions

Aphis gossypii has become increasingly difficult to manage due to its strong insecticide resistance. In the laboratory, we established sulfoxaflor-resistant and acetamiprid-resistant strains in two A. gossypii populations with different basal insecticide resistance levels, and evaluated the effects of basal insecticide resistance on the resistance development and cross-resistance, as well as differences in fitness. Under the same selection pressure, Yarkant A. gossypii (with low basal insecticide resistance) evolved resistance to sulfoxaflor and acetamiprid more quickly than Jinghe A. gossypii (with high basal insecticide resistance), and the evolution of A. gossypii resistance to sulfoxaflor developed faster than acetamiprid in both Yarkant and Jinghe, Xingjiang, China. The sulfoxaflor-resistant strains selected from Yarkant and Jinghe developed significant cross-resistance to acetamiprid, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and pymetrozine; while the acetamiprid-resistant strains developed significant cross-resistance to sulfoxaflor, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, pymetrozine, and chlorpyrifos. The relative fitness of A. gossypii decreased as the resistance to sulfoxaflor and acetamiprid developed. The relative fitness levels of the sulfoxaflor-resistant strains (Yarkant-SulR and Jinghe-SulR) were lower than those of the acetamiprid-resistant strains (Yarkant-AceR and Jinghe-AceR). In addition, the relative fitness levels of sulfoxaflor- and acetamiprid-resistant strains were lower in Jinghe than in Yarkant. In summary, basal insecticide resistance of A. gossypii and insecticide type affected the evolution of resistance to insecticides in A. gossypii, as well as cross-resistance to other insecticides. The sulfoxaflor- and acetamiprid-resistant A. gossypii strains had obvious fitness costs. The results of this work will contribute to the insecticide resistance management and integrated management of A. gossypii.

The Microbiome of the Built Environment: The Nexus for Urban Regeneration for the Cities of Tomorrow.

Built environments are, for most of us, our natural habitat. In the last 50 years, the built-up area has more than doubled, with a massive biodiversity loss. The undeniable benefits of a city providing all the basic needs to a growing population showed longer-term and less obvious costs to human health: autoimmune and non-communicable diseases, as well as antimicrobial resistance, have reached unprecedented and alarming levels. Humans coevolved with microbes, and this long-lasting alliance is affected by the loss of connection with natural environments, misuse of antibiotics, and highly sanitized environments. Our aim is to direct the focus onto the microbial communities harbored by the built environments we live in. They represent the nexus for urban regeneration, which starts from a healthy environment. Planning a city means considering, in a two-fold way, the ecosystem health and the multidimensional aspects of wellbeing, including social, cultural, and aesthetic values. The significance of this perspective is inspiring guidelines and strategies for the urban regeneration of the cities of tomorrow, exploiting the invaluable role of microbial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it could provide to create the robust scientific knowledge that is necessary for a bioinformed design of buildings and cities for healthy and sustainable living.

Selection against admixture and gene regulatory divergence in a long-term primate field study.

Genetic admixture is central to primate evolution. We combined 50 years of field observations of immigration and group demography with genomic data from ~9 generations of hybrid baboons to investigate the consequences of admixture in the wild. Despite no obvious fitness costs to hybrids, we found signatures of selection against admixture similar to those described for archaic hominins. These patterns were concentrated near genes where ancestry is strongly associated with gene expression. Our analyses also show that introgression is partially predictable across the genome. This study demonstrates the value of integrating genomic and field data for revealing how "genomic signatures of selection" (e.g., reduced introgression in low-recombination regions) manifest in nature; moreover, it underscores the importance of other primates as living models for human evolution.

Assisted dispersal and reproductive success in an ant species with matchmaking.

Workers of the ant Cardiocondyla elegans drop female sexuals into the nest entrance of other colonies to promote outbreeding with unrelated, wingless males. Corroborating the results from previous years, we document that carrier and carried female sexuals are typically related and that the transfer initially occurs mostly from their joint natal colonies to unrelated colonies. Female sexuals mate multiply with up to seven genetically distinguishable males. Contrary to our expectation, the colony growth rate of multiple‐mated and outbred female sexuals was lower than that of inbred or single‐mated females, leading to the question of why female sexuals mate multiply at all. Despite the obvious costs, multiple mating might be a way for female sexuals to “pay rent” for hibernation in an alien nest. We argue that in addition to evade inbreeding depression from regular sibling mating over many generations, assisted dispersal might also be a strategy for minimizing the risk of losing all reproductive investment when nests are flooded in winter.

Vertical Integration of Industrial Companies for Mitigating the Impact of Volatility in the Economy

The modern conditions of a globalized economy, in which there are no non-interacting elements, has both undeniable benefits and obvious costs. In particular, one of the costs is dependence of a separate structural element of industry and its efficiency on the general state of the system as well as on other components of the economy. The oil refining industry (a branch of the industrial economy) largely depends on fluctuations in oil prices, which make up the volume of costs and revenue, which in turn affect the level of profit. One of the ways to mitigate market volatility is vertical integration. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis about the positive impact of vertical integration on the level of volatility. The methodological tools are graphical analysis and nonparametric tests. We used stock prices of companies in the oil refining industry to calculate volatility coefficients, average profitability and the Sharpe coefficient. The research hypothesis was supported. Ceteris paribus, vertically integrated economic entities with a lower degree of volatility have the same level of profitability compared to non-integrated companies in the same industry.

Dirty Hands and Clean Minds: On the Soldier’s Right to Forget

ABSTRACT The United States has been waging the “War on Terror” for nearly two decades. Obscured among the more obvious costs of that war is the moral injury borne by many of the soldiers who have fought and participated in it. Unlike post-traumatic stress disorder, which is rooted in fear, moral injury is rooted in shame, shame for having committed a moral transgression, a violation of the moral code. Haunted by the memory of their misdeeds, these soldiers are plagued by all manner of illness and infirmity, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide. In this article, I explore whether these soldiers have a right to forget, one that would entitle them to use pharmacological or psychological manipulation to cleanse their minds of the memory that they have dirtied their hands, and in that way relieve themselves of the anguish and torment from which they suffer.

Inheritance and fitness cost of buprofezin resistance in a near-isogenic, field-derived strain and insecticide resistance monitoring of Laodelphax striatellus in China.

Laodelphax striatellus is one of the most destructive pests of rice and other cereal crops. Chemical control is still the most efficient way to control this pest, but insecticide resistance always threatens this approach. Monitoring data (2003-2020) showed that Chinese field populations of L.striatellus developed high-level buprofezin resistance within the first four years. This high-level resistance to buprofezin was stable for about ten years and persisted even when buprofezin selection pressure was absent. An established near-isogenic strain (YN-NIS) with 90.8-fold resistance to buprofezin had resistance inheritance of autosomal and incomplete dominance, and the resistance was controlled by multiple genes with no obvious fitness costs (relative fitness of 0.8707). Furthermore, the susceptibility of 29 field populations to another seven insecticides (2014-2020) showed that: (i) low-level resistance to pymetrozine, dinotefuran, sulfoxaflor and thiamethoxam was first detected in 2014 (eight years after introduction), 2016 (three years after), 2017 (four years after) and 2019 (19 years after), respectively, (ii) moderate resistance levels to chlorpyrifos were found for all populations across multiple years, and (iii) no resistance was detected for nitenpyram and triflumezopyrim. The fast buprofezin resistance development in L.striatellus would be caused by incomplete dominant resistance with almost no fitness cost in the resistant strain. Nitenpyram and triflumezopyrim showed no resistance and can be used as the main insecticide for the control of L.striatellus. These findings provide key fundamental information for controlling L.striatellus.

The Concept of the “Reverse Iceberg-RIB” in the Application of Account of Total Cost of Ownership for a Reusable Wooden Flat Pallet in its Operating Phase

Purpose: The main aim of this article is to show that the total cost of ownership of a pallet (which is not restricted to simply owning it) can become both a useful philosophy for purchasing these logistic carriers and an effective tool used to significantly reduce the costs of logistic activity of enterprises. Approach/Methodology/Design: Key dimensions of competition in the logistics area include the so-called golden triangle, i.e., time, quality and costs, and that is why they require a revision of the way we consider them, especially in case of the last aspect. This article presents an original approach to the problem of examination of all possible costs that cargo pallets generate in their operational life cycle, using the concept of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as an analysis methodology and the survey method for the research sample. Findings: In the reverse iceberg model, obvious and non-obvious costs have been identified in individual groups of costs related to pallet ownership during its operating phase. Considerations undertaken in this article lead to an obvious conclusion that an attempt to implement an approach to this important element of logistic infrastructure, and one can undoubtedly consider wooden cargo pallets as such, from the angle of account of costs allows to find grounds for taking real action leading to a significant reduction of costs of logistic activity in an enterprise. Practical Implications: The article employs a comprehensive approach to the most complete analysis of cost groups as possible since the authors have adopted a stance that omission of the potential to reduce costs related to material logistics in which wooden pallets are used requires a different perspective. Originality/Value: Numerous authors point to different sources and types of costs, and also present different views on how to define, interpret and identify their structure. The authors of this article propose thinking in terms of TCO as an alternative to the conventional approach to pallet-related costs at the same time postulating a standpoint based on their own model of inverted iceberg (RIB).

A randomized, non-crossover, parallel-group analysis of tranexamic acid in minimizing blood loss and transfusions in total knee arthroplasty

Objectives: Total knee arthroplasty is associated with significant blood loss, necessitating blood transfusions. Due to the obvious risks and costs of allogeneic blood transfusions, techniques to minimize blood loss in surgery are needed. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of tranexamic acid treatment in reducing blood loss and blood transfusion requirements during total knee arthroplasty. Materials and Methods: A prospective, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, non-crossover trial was carried out in Prathima Hospital, Karimnagar. The trial involved 28 ASA I and II patients undergoing unilateral knee arthroplasty, 14 in each of the control and study groups. In the study group, a 10 mg/kg bolus of tranexamic acid was administered slowly IV 30 min before tourniquet deflation, followed by a 1 mg/kg/hr infusion for 12 h, compared to the standard medical treatment in the control group. Total blood loss during and after surgery was compared between the two classes. We also compared the hemoglobin drop after surgery, the number of people who needed blood transfusions, and the number of units needed between the two classes. Any complications were also reported. Results: Total blood loss in the tranexamic acid group was 543.3 ± 184.85 versus 685.83 ± 176.74, a statistically significant difference (P < 0.05). Intraoperative blood loss was comparable, but post-operative blood loss was significantly lower in the tranexamic acid group (389.16 ± 174 ml vs. 514.36 ± 143.89 ml), indicating that it was statistically significant (P < 0.05). There were no complications reported from any of the groups. Conclusion: Tranexamic acid is an effective strategy for minimizing overall blood loss and blood transfusions in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty.

Is the biological adaptiveness of delusions doomed?

Delusions are usually considered as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs, one of the primary symptoms of a psychiatric illness and the mark of madness in popular culture. However, in recent times a much more positive role has been advocated for delusions. More specifically, it has been argued that delusions might be an (imperfect) answer to a problem rather than problems in themselves. By delivering psychological and epistemic benefits, delusions would allow people who face severe biological or psychological difficulties to survive in their environment - although this has obvious epistemic costs, as the delusion is fixed and irresponsive to compelling counterevidence. In other words, it has been argued that delusions are biologically adaptive. The adaptiveness of delusions has been compared by Ryan McKay and Daniel Dennett to a shear pin, a mechanism installed in the drive engine of some machines which is designed to shear whenever the machine is about to break down. By breaking, shear pins prevent the machine from collapsing and allow it to keep functioning, although in an impaired manner. Similarly, when delusions form, they would allow a cognitive or psychological system which is about to collapse to continue its functioning, although in an impaired manner. However, this optimistic picture of delusions risks being undermined by both theoretical and empirical considerations. Using Sarah Fineberg and Philip Corlett’s recent predictive coding account as a paradigmatic model of the biological adaptiveness of delusions, I develop two objections to it: (1) principles of parsimony and simplicity suggest that maladaptive models of delusions have an upper hand over adaptive models; and (2) the available empirical evidence suggests that at least some delusions stand good chances of being psychologically adaptive, but it is unlikely that they also qualify as biologically adaptive.

Responding in Crisis: Considerations for Administrators and Faculty

Responding in Crisis: Considerations for Administrators and Faculty

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Religious Persecution: Casting Up a Dread Balance Sheet

This Article notes that it is currently a matter of public controversy whether some forms of persecution based on religion are increasing or decreasing in the United States. This question itself is not subject to reasoned, consensual resolution. But a related and extremely important point remains to be made. Specifically, alongside the obvious costs of any persecution based on religion, many instances of alleged or actual religious persecution confer immense, judicially cognizable benefits, from the standpoint of many of the victims themselves, on many parties, including those victims. It can be entirely legitimate for legislatures, agencies, and courts to take such immense benefits to the victims into account in adopting policies or adjudicating claims about such government policies.

Host preference of three Asian larval parasitoids to closely related Drosophila species: implications for biological control of Drosophila suzukii

Insect parasitoids can attack phylogenetically related hosts that share similar physiological properties and defense mechanisms and, more importantly, overlapping ecological niches. Here, host preferences of three parasitoids, Asobara japonica (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), Ganaspis brasiliensis and Leptopilina japonica (Hymenoptera: Figitidae), were examined on two closely related hosts, Drosophila suzukii and D. melanogaster (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Each parasitoid’s rate of successful parasitism (or offspring survival) on these hosts was first compared in no choice tests. Results showed that A. japonica had higher parasitism levels than G. brasiliensis and L. japonica, and that offspring survival for all parasitoids was similar on both host species. Host preferences in choice tests were then compared, with each parasitoid presented with the two host species at different proportions of host abundance. None of the parasitoids showed host preference or host switching, even though these parasitoids have different degrees of host specificity, from more generalized (A. japonica) to more specialized (G. brasiliensis). Further examination of parasitoid olfactory responses showed all three parasitoid species were attracted to volatiles from fruit infested by either host species and showed no preference to either D. suzukii or D. melanogaster. Results suggest that the hosts’ phylogenetical similarity and a lack of any obvious fitness costs for offspring survival may reduce host preference by these larval parasitoids.

Systems thinking and the biopsychosocial approach: A multilevel framework for patient‐centred care

AbstractPatient‐centred care is an approach intended to include service‐users' needs and perspectives as crucial aspects of clinical treatment, superseding any attempt to paternalistic and unilateral attitude in the therapeutic relationship. It is a call to think about persons and not simply of their diseases and implies the adoption of a biopsychosocial perspective and shared decision making. Nonetheless, thinking about persons inevitably means taking the context into due consideration, as individuals are not isolated and any kind of illness experience cannot be thought as a simple matter of inner thoughts and feelings. This perspective article builds on the core tenets of systems thinking and the biopsychosocial approach, with the aim of developing a multilevel approach to patient‐centred care. Within this framework, a literature review has been conducted to gather relevant research findings concerning each level of analysis and the interrelations of such levels.Systems thinking is an ideal framework for capturing the multilayered aspects of illness, from the biological processes that lead to a given disease to the social context where people live. From this angle, we can argue that systems‐centred care is the framework we actually need to truly accomplish patient‐centred goals. This means seeing people as complex dynamical systems and always bearing in mind the ecology of their lives. This also means gearing research and clinical practice towards this direction because complex phenomena like health require adequate methods of inquiry and treatment plans. A multilevel approach is the main road to effective and enduring outcomes. On the contrary, fragmentation of knowledge and excessive specialization without integration can pave the way to short‐term solutions and weak or vanishing improvements in the long run, with obvious costs for persons, families and the community.

Customer Satisfaction with Consumption Systems

ABSTRACT Purpose: This research examines how satisfaction toward a product and its associated services offered together by a single provider jointly affects behavioral intentions toward the provider. Design/methodology/approach: In this study, empirical tests were conducted using longitudinal data spanning 5 years from a multinational company that offers both products and associated services as part of a consumption system to their customers. Findings: Results show a joint congruent effect of product and services satisfaction on behavioral intentions is linear and positive. It appears that offering great service cannot compensate for less-than-adequate satisfaction toward the product. The results further highlight decreasing customer sensitivity to improvements in both sources of satisfaction and imply that focusing on too high levels of one type of satisfaction for their customers can actually be counterproductive for firms. Research Limitations: Our model was tested using the data obtained from a single firm. Future research could test this model with data from multiple firms in various different industries and establish broader generalizability to the findings. Practical Implications: Findings provide managers with insights on how to allocate resources across product and service spaces and to manage product and services revenues over time. Results also indicate that customer behavioral intention ratings are more weighted on product quality over the service received by them. However, mere improvements in the product cannot provide the highest desired results and therefore quality improvements in the product need to be complemented by improvements in service quality. Originality/Value: There is a rapid emergence of the phenomenon of manufacturers providing both products and services as an integrated consumption system to their customers. While the provision of both product and service subsystems by the same firm leads to certain synergies, there are obvious costs to the development of new service capabilities and coordination with existing product capabilities. Our research intends to address this issue.

The stones of the Sanctuary of Delphi – Northern shore of the Corinth Gulf – Greece

The choice of stones by the ancient Greeks to build edifices remains an open question. If the use of local materials seems generalized, allochthonous stones are usually also present but lead to obvious extra costs. The current work aims to have an exhaustive view of the origins of the stones used in the Sanctuary of Delphi. Located on the Parnassus zone, on the hanging wall of a large normal fault related to the Corinth Rift, this Apollo Sanctuary is mainly built of limestones, breccia, marbles, as well as more recent poorly consolidated sediments generally calledpôrosin the literature. To overpass this global view, the different lithologies employed in the archaeological site have been identified, as well as the local quarries, in order to find their origins. The different limestones are autochthons and come from the Upper Jurassic – Cretaceous carbonate platform of the Tethys Ocean involved in the Hellenides orogen. Those limestones of the Parnassus Massif constitute the majority of the rock volume in the site; a specific facies of Maastrichtian limestone called “Profitis Ilias limestone” has been used for the more prestigious edifices such as the Apollo Temple. The corresponding ancient quarry is located few kilometers west of the sanctuary. Then, slope breccia has been largely used in the sanctuary: it crops out in and around the site and is laying on top of the carbonates. Finally, thepôrosappear to be very variable and seven different facies have been documented, including travertine, oolitic grainstone, marine carbonates and coarse-grained sandstones. All these recent facies exist in the south-east shore of the Gulf of Corinth, although – except for the grainstone – the quarries are not yet known.

EU28 Capital Market Perspectives of a Hard BREXIT: Theory, Empirical Findings and Policy Options

Abstract Key aspects covered refer to the cost of leaving the EU and in particular the implications for corporate bond risk premiums in the UK and the Eurozone: The gap between the interest rates of corporate bonds and government bonds could increase in the UK and Eurozone, respectively, as a result of BREXIT where the 2016 BREXIT referendum itself is considered to be a first BREXIT event (see the empirical findings), followed by the main BREXIT event, namely the day of officially leaving the EU – possibly as a No-deal BREXIT. It is as yet not clear what type of BREXIT will be implemented – hard versus soft – and it is also unclear what type of free trade agreement the EU and the UK could accomplish post-BREXIT. However, it is obviously necessary to carefully consider the background of the BREXIT dynamics and to then refer to various versions of BREXIT if one is to understand the inherent politico-economic dynamics of BREXIT – with a No-deal case representing an analytical benchmark which most politicians in the British Parliament obviously would want to avoid; a simple way to indeed avoid this case, with obvious high costs for the British economy, is not easy to discern as the UK’s political system is fractured. If the safe-haven status of the UK should be impaired by BREXIT, the rise of government bond interest rates by 0.3 percent would stand for the same burden as the net UK contribution to the EU.