Prominent Role In Discussions Research Articles

Quantifying demand and willingness to pay for local food production

Abstract The location of production and processing has had an increasingly prominent role in discussions regarding food systems today. Acknowledging the increasing importance, we study consumer preferences for and perception of local products with a particular focus on how willingness to pay (WTP) for local origin indication differs across products, types of designations, and rurality of the individual's geographic location. Using data collected through an online survey, we focused on Indiana residents’ preferences for sweet corn and Barbecue (BBQ) sauce with the sample representing both rural and urban consumers across all twelve economic growth regions in the state. Results reveal significant premiums for local products, with variations in WTP for certain local indications across rural and urban respondents. We also find that the marketing channel (farmer's market, direct from producer, or retail/grocery store) significantly influences respondents’ WTP for the two products, with results varying across the two products.

A replication and re-analysis of a classic texture segmentation study.

A classic finding reported in Beck (1966a) is that observers tend to indicate a more natural texture break between a set of T's and tilted T's than between a set of T's and backward L's. This finding has played a prominent role in discussions about the properties of texture segmentation and in the development of computational theories of texture segmentation. Due to the small sample size of the original study, we replicated the original experiment with a larger sample. Regrettably, we discovered that the description in Beck (1966a) is insufficient to allow us to reproduce the stimuli. For our replication, we created stimuli that seem consistent with the spirit of the original study. The results of the replication study partly match Beck's original data ([Formula: see text]), but conclusions indicated by these results deviate from some of Beck's key conclusions. We also further explored the influential claim derived from a second experiment in Beck (1966a) that texture segmentation was not related to the perceived similarity of elements. Contrary to this claim, a re-analysis of Beck's data indicates the counterintuitive conclusion that observers tend to indicate stronger texture segmentation between regions that are rated as being more similar. In a replication of the second experiment, this relation flipped so that the replication observers indicated stronger texture segmentation for regions with lower similarity ratings. Despite being influential, we conclude that there are substantial problems with the stimuli, analyses, and conclusions in Beck (1966a).

The macroevolutionary dynamics of activity pattern in mammals: Primates in context

Activity pattern has played a prominent role in discussions of primate evolutionary history. Most primates are either diurnal or nocturnal, but a small number are active both diurnally and nocturnally. This pattern—cathemerality—also occurs at low frequency across mammals. Using a large sample of mammalian species, this study evaluates two macroevolutionary hypotheses proposed to explain why cathemerality is less common than diurnality and nocturnality: 1) that cathemeral lineages have higher extinction probabilities (differential diversification) and 2) that transitions out of cathemerality are more frequent, making it a less persistent state (differential state persistence). Rates of speciation, extinction, and transition between character states were estimated using hidden-rates models applied to a phylogenetic tree containing 3013 mammals classified by activity pattern. The models failed to detect consistent differences in diversification dynamics among activity patterns, but there is strong support for differential state persistence. Transition rates out of cathemerality tend to be much higher than transition rates out of nocturnality. Transition rates out of diurnality are similar to those for cathemerality in most clades, with two important exceptions: diurnality is unusually persistent in anthropoid primates and sciurid rodents. These two groups combine very low rates of transition out of diurnality with high speciation rates. This combination has no parallels among cathemeral lineages, explaining why diurnality has become more common than cathemerality in mammals. Similarly, the combination of rates found in anthropoids is sufficient to explain the low relative frequency of cathemerality in primates, making it unnecessary to appeal to high extinction probabilities in cathemeral lineages in this clade. These findings support the hypothesis that the distribution of activity patterns across mammals has been influenced primarily by differential state persistence, whereas the effect of differential diversification appears to have been more idiosyncratic.

Bank Interest Margin and Green Lending Policy under Sunflower Management

Sunflower management is a type of management style in which a chief executive officer (CEO) ignores information and attempts to confirm the board’s prior beliefs. The CEO’s accommodating behavior may reduce incentive conflicts but also stimulate diligent board monitoring. The present article aims to develop a contingent claim utility model to investigate the effect of green lending on bank spread behavior and board monitoring under sunflower management. The principal advantage of the contingent claim utility approach is the explicit treatment of uncertainty and diligent board monitoring, which play a prominent role in discussions of intermediary behavior. Additionally, banks may earn goodwill from a green lending policy, thus yielding environmental improvements. In this study, we explore the goodwill effect on the bank’s interest margin determination and board monitoring. We use the comparative statistics method to analyze the result of changes in the theoretical model’s exogenous parameters. Moreover, we use empirical data as a baseline for numerical simulations to explain the comparative statistics. Our main findings are that increasing green lending reduces interest margins and enforces diligent board monitoring. The increase in goodwill garnered from improvements to the bank’s green lending reputation was found to enhance the interest margins but ease active board monitoring. From these results, we outline implications such as implementing intangible goodwill asset accumulation from bank customers’ green awareness via green lending publicity that increases the bank interest margin under sunflower management, thereby affecting banking stability.

Taxonomic affinities of the putative titanosaurs from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania: phylogenetic and biogeographic implications for eusauropod dinosaur evolution

The Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Tanzania, southeastern Africa, records a rich sauropod fauna, including the diplodocoids Dicraeosaurus and Tornieria, and the brachiosaurid titanosauriform Giraffatitan. However, the taxonomic affinities of other sympatric sauropod taxa are poorly understood. Here, we critically reassess and redescribe these problematic taxa, and present the largest phylogenetic analysis for sauropods (117 taxa scored for 542 characters) to explore their placement in Eusauropoda. Janenschia robusta has played a prominent role in discussions of titanosaur origins, with various authors referring at least some remains to Titanosauria, a clade otherwise known only from the Cretaceous. Redescription of the holotype of Janenschia, and all referable remains, supports its validity and placement as a non-neosauropod eusauropod. It forms a clade with Haestasaurus from the earliest Cretaceous of the UK, and the Middle/Late Jurassic Chinese sauropod Bellusaurus. Phylogenetic analysis and CT scans of the internal pneumatic tissue structure of Australodocus bohetii tentatively support a non-titanosaurian somphospondylan identification, making it the only known pre-Cretaceous representative of that clade. New information on the internal pneumatic tissue structure of the dorsal vertebrae of the enigmatic Tendaguria tanzaniensis, coupled with a full redescription, results in its novel placement as a turiasaur. Tendaguria is the sister taxon of Moabosaurus, from the Early Cretaceous of North America, and is the first turiasaur recognized from Gondwana. A previously referred caudal sequence cannot be assigned to Janenschia and displays several features that indicate a close relationship with Middle–Late Jurassic East Asian mamenchisaurids. It can be diagnosed by six autapomorphies, so we erect the new taxon Wamweracaudia keranjei gen. et sp. nov. The presence of a mamenchisaurid in the Late Jurassic of southern Gondwana indicates an earlier and more widespread diversification of this clade than previously realized, prior to the geographic isolation of East Asia. Our revised phylogenetic dataset sheds light on the evolutionary history of Eusauropoda, including supporting a basal diplodocoid placement for Haplocanthosaurus, and elucidating the interrelationships of rebbachisaurids. The Tendaguru Formation shares representatives of nearly all sauropod lineages with Middle Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous global faunas, but displays a greater range of diversity than any of those faunas considered individually. Biogeographic analysis indicates that the Tendaguru sauropod fauna was assembled as a result of three main phenomena during the late Early and/or Middle Jurassic: (1) invasions from Euramerica (brachiosaurids, turiasaurs); (2) endemism in west Gondwana (dicraeosaurids, diplodocids); and (3) regional extinctions that restricted the ranges of once widespread groups (mamenchisaurids, the Janenschia lineage). Multiple dispersals across the Central Gondwanan Desert are required to explain the distributions of Jurassic sauropods, suggesting that this geographic feature was at most a filter barrier that became easier to cross during the late Middle Jurassic.

Scientific explanation, unifying mathematics, and indispensability arguments (A new Cicada MES)

Indispensability arguments occupy a prominent role in discussions of mathematical realism. While different versions of these arguments are discussed in the literature, their general structure remains the same. These arguments contend that insofar as reference to mathematical objects is indispensable to science, we are committed to the existence of these ‘objects’. Unsurprisingly, much of the debate concerning indispensability arguments focuses on the crucial contention that mathematical objects are indispensable to science. For these arguments to provide support for mathematical realism, what we require are some compelling examples of mathematics playing an indispensable role in science. Towards this end, Alan Baker has supplied an example in which mathematics appears to be indispensable to a scientific explanation, what has come to be called the “Cicada MES”. This example has been the subject of much criticism, most notably that it depends on an unsupported empirical supposition. Recently, Baker proposed a number of revisions to the Cicada MES that aim to address some of these criticisms. In this paper, I argue that while Baker’s revisions go some way towards mitigating prominent criticisms of the Cicada MES, the underlying problem with the explanation remains. I argue that his revisions actually go in the wrong direction mathematically and empirically. In contrast, I propose a new Cicada MES. This new version accomplishes Baker’s goals and responds to the central objection to the explanation. It invokes a mathematical principle that plays a unifying role in the explanation, which makes providing adequate nominalist surrogates more difficult. And, more importantly, it accommodates an empirically grounded explanation of the phenomenon to be explained. Consequently, this new Cicada MES provides what proponents of indispensability arguments require, a compelling example of mathematics playing an indispensable role in science.

Landscape and Settlement in Late Bronze Age Cyprus: Investigations at Pyla-Kokkinokremos, 2007–2009

Pyla-Kokkinokremos is a fortified hilltop settlement in Cyprus founded towards the end of the Late Bronze Age. It has played a prominent role in discussions concerning the c. 1200 BC ‘collapse’ in the wider eastern Mediterranean. Results from survey and soundings (2007–09) provide significant new information about the site and its relationship to the surrounding landscape. This includes the discovery of a large intramural feature in the form of a shallow bedrock terrace with associated architecture running through the centre of the settlement. Consideration is also given to broader regional patterns of settlement in the surrounding Pyla littoral and south-east Cyprus.

Modernizing Spatial Micro-Refuse Analysis: New Methods for Collecting, Analyzing, and Interpreting the Spatial Patterning of Micro-Refuse from House-Floor Contexts

Archaeologists can learn a great deal from the distribution of cultural evidence at various scales ranging from large regions, through small communities, down to individual households. Since in many societies a significant proportion of the human experience takes place within and around houses, houses play a prominent role in discussions of habitus. Yet archaeologists have also experienced challenges in their attempts to understand this habitus, especially when so many archaeological remains pertain to short-term activities that occurred near the end of a house’s use life, or even after, and may not even be typical. Focusing on the tiniest debris that accumulates over long periods may help us overcome these challenges, but many archaeologists have been reluctant to employ micro- refuse analysis because of the erroneous perception that the scale of effort it involves must be astronomical. The approach we demonstrate in this paper shows that careful consideration of sampling both in the field and in the lab makes it possible to detect robust patterns from persistent activities with a fraction of the effort that some previous analysts have employed. One of our key findings is that employing large numbers of volunteer counters, in combination with adequate quality assurance protocols, greatly facilitates this type of research.

Fluid flow and metasomatic fault weakening in the Moresby Seamount detachment, Woodlark Basin, offshore Papua New Guinea

Low‐angle normal faults play a prominent role in discussions about fault strength, as they require significant weakening to remain active at low angles. The submerged Moresby Seamount detachment (MSD) is arguably the best exposed active low‐angle detachment worldwide. We analyzed dredged MSD protoliths, cataclasites and mylonites to investigate deformation mechanisms and fault‐weakening processes. Deformation is accompanied by important syntectonic, fluid‐induced mass transfer, controlling the rheological behavior of the MSD. While the mafic protolith behaves brittlely at the onset of deformation, the metasomatic mineralogical and chemical changes cause a transition to plastic flow as the rock is progressively exhumed. Immobile elements provide a reference frame for total material gains and losses. Si, Ca and K are syntectonically enriched, while Fe, Ti, Mg, and Al are depleted. Mass increase is about 10% in the cataclasites and about 48% in the mylonites. Main mechanism is syntectonic veining, causing enrichment in calcite and quartz, thus making the mylonites capable to flow plastically. Minimum time‐integrated fluid flux is calculated as 3 × 105 m3 m−2, indicating that the MSD is an important fluid conduit. The fluids have a deep crustal source, a bottom water temperature and turbidity anomaly suggests that the hydrothermal system is still active. Syntectonic veining in fault rocks and recent seismic activity both suggest that the MSD is intermittently brittle, implying a brittle‐plastic transition at unusually high temperature and low differential stress. We conclude that fault zone metasomatism is crucial in forming weak detachments at passive margins, and may be a prerequisite for successful crustal breakup.

Reconstructing Old Norse Oral Tradition

Reconstructing Old Norse Oral Tradition Stephen Mitchell (bio) The written residue of oral tradition from the medieval Nordic world encompasses a wide variety of pan-national genres, including charms, legends, and genealogical lore, but modern scholarly attention has generally focused on two areas: (1) the prose (and often prosimetrical) Icelandic sagas and (2) traditional poetry in its two dominant forms, eddic and scaldic. Many factors play into this somewhat restricted image of what constituted oral tradition in the hyperborean Middle Ages—obviously, manuscript preservation and the issue of what materials have come down to us are key elements, but so too are, among others, the effects of early modern nation-building, nineteenth-century nationalism, and contemporary aesthetic tastes. Certainly one important aspect of the emphasis on saga literature is the broad appeal the Icelandic sagas hold for modern audiences, a fascination easily apprehended in that they are characteristically complex narratives exhibiting sophisticated literary portraiture and realistically detailed events. The topics of the sagas vary from historical, legendary, religious, and contemporary themes to the completely fantastic, and as such they offer an inclusive and panoramic view of medieval Nordic cultural life, narrative imagination, and attitudes toward the past and the heroic. Whether these marvelous medieval texts are to be seen as (1) reflections of a vibrant oral culture absorbing and codifying elements of the world around their authors, or (2) merely reflexes of written texts borrowed from abroad, or (3) some compromise between the two extremes, borrowing freely from available foreign models but also incorporating much native tradition, has historically dominated perceptions and scholarly debates about the sagas (Andersson 1964), and although occasionally new models emerge (Lönnroth 1976), it is clear that the weight of the nativist—anti-nativist arguments remains a powerful influence on academic treatments of the topic. Eddic poetry principally concerns itself with mythological and heroic themes, whereas scaldic verse tends toward praise, memorial, and occasional poetry, but it should be noted that scaldic panegyrics also take up, for example, [End Page 203] Christian religious themes. The frequently noted performance contexts of such poetry have played a particularly prominent role in discussions of oral composition and delivery of such works in medieval Scandinavia (Bauman 1986; Harris 2000). Perhaps the greatest change in the study of medieval Norse saga literature and lore over the past 100 years has been an enhanced appreciation for the cultural context of these materials—not just How were they formulated, but With what patronage? Under what circumstances? With what audience in mind? With what expectations? Declaimed? Read silently? and so on. Once such wonderful works had been wrenched from the hands of a desiccating formalism dedicated to a fixed text and an equally alkaline literary criticism that saw only words on a page, an understanding of the Norse materials’ potential as ethnic textual photograph and literary wonderwork was available, a synthetic view that exhibits allegiance to neither extremist position but understands the potential for developing a much-needed symbiosis between them. The works of Lars Lönnroth have been of special importance in this regard (e.g., 1980), and have had a marked impact on several generations of scholars in North America and Europe. A recent work by Gísli Sigurðsson (2002) challenges many assumptions concerning our (in)ability to reconstruct medieval orality from surviving documents and offers new insights into the character of the sagas’ oral background. If the trend in saga schoarship has been one of increased context-ualization, modern consideration of Norse poetry has likewise been marked by an enhanced appeciation for “performance contexts,” that is, an increased understanding for how an “ethnography of speaking” assists us in reading such texts (e.g., Mitchell 2002). Alongside such performance-oriented approaches, sophisticated considerations employing codicology and literary criticism in new ways (e.g., Harris 1983; Quinn 1992), have led to important re-evaluations of the poetic corpus and its potential relationship to oral tradition. Far from exhausting the possibilities of spiritual culture in the Nordic Middle Ages (see, for example, the overview in Mitchell 2000), the Icelandic sagas and poetic materials give us a glimpse into how rich the nature of oral narration must once have been in that world...

Land Tenure and Naming Systems in Aboriginal Australia

Naming systems play a prominent role in discussions of land tenure by Aboriginal people. Reference to one area of land and its owners is most commonly in terms of name ‘X’, whereas reference to another area of land and its owners is most commonly made in terms of name ‘Y’. Much of the analytical literature examines how these names refer to groups of people. There is considerable dispute as to whether the reference of these names suffices to determine disjoint groupings of owners that can be described by the term ‘clan’.This paper proposes that the analysis of linkages between names and areas of land should have priority over the analysis of linkages between names and groups of people. The evidence shows that the attachment of names to areas of land is more stable and consistent than their attachment to groups of people. There are differences in the ways that names attach to the landscape, and these differences are significant—they determine whether or not more than one name from the same system may be attached to an area of land.This paper focuses on two areas of Australia: the northern Kakadu‐Oenpelli area and the Timber Creek area (both in the Northern Territory). It shows that naming systems identify disjunctive areas of land as the targets for claims of primary ownership in both areas. These disjunctive areas may reasonably be described with the translation term ‘estates’. In the northern Kakadu‐Oenpelli area, corresponding to these estates, there are disjunctive groupings of owners, which may be termed ‘clans’. However, groupings of owners are not clearly disjunctive in the Timber Creek area, and there is little motivation for using the term ‘clan’.This paper proposes that this difference reflects a general pattern in Aboriginal Australia, with naming systems stably and consistently identifying ‘estates’ across much of the continent. They do not identify ‘clans’ with equivalent stability and consistency.

Das Problem der Entstehung der Vögel und ihrer frühen Evolution

First discovered in 1860,Archaeopteryx has played a prominent role in discussions of avian origin especially during the 20th century. One of the most dramatic discoveries in modern ornithology involved the revelation of a completely new clade of Mesozoic birds, the enantiornithines, first described in 1981. Among the most spectacular of these early birds isConfuciusornis from the early Cretaceous of China. Enantiornithines are now known from every continent except Antarctica, and from the Lower to Upper Cretaceous. They were the predominant landbirds of the Mesozoic Era, and produced a vast adaptive radiation of varied morphological types.

The Evolution of Host Specialization: Are Trade-Offs Overrated?

The idea that traits that adapt a population to one habitat or host are deleterious in other habitats or on other hosts is central to most theories for the evolution of ecological specialization. The trade-off concept has played an especially prominent role in discussions of the evolution of host specialization in phytophagous insects. The evidence for genetically based trade-offs in phytophagous insect populations is ambiguous, however. Cross-host genetic correlations for fitness traits are seldom negative, but this does not preclude the existence of trade-offs at a subset of loci controlling the fitness variation. One clear result is that cross-host genetic correlations for fitness traits are often less than one, which implies that genotypes have different fitness rankings on different hosts (i.e., that reaction norms for fitness cross). Using verbal arguments and a mathematical model, I show that crossing of reaction norms for fitness is a sufficient condition for selection to favor specialized host choice, in the absence of search costs and other disadvantages of specialization. In other words, selection will favor specialization if alleles that are positively selected on one host are less strongly positively selected, or neutral, on other hosts; it is not necessary for the alleles to be deleterious on the other hosts. Search costs and other factors may oppose the evolution of specialization, but introducing trade-offs into a model does not result in a quantum jump in the strength of selection favoring specialization, and thus in the likelihood of specialization evolving, compared to the situation in which alleles that affect fitness on one host are neutral on others. There is therefore no justification for focusing on the qualitative presence or absence of trade-offs as the critical issue in predicting or explaining the evolution of specialization. Furthermore, the quantitative genetic data, rather than give little information on why specialization evolves, indicate that the potential for selection to favor specialization exists in many phytophagous populations.

Modality third grade

Names and common nouns have played an especially prominent role in discussions o f modal logic. The reason is not hard to fred; for much of this discussion has centered on W.V. Quine's allegation that modal contexts contravene the substitutivity of identicals and that they are, therefore, referentially opaque and not subject to external quantification. To take the familiar example, while it is necessary that nine is greater than seven, it is not necessary that the number of planets is greater than seven despite the fact ( if it is a fact) that nine is the number of planets. The moral to be drawn, Quine tells us, is this:

Corrigendum on A Life Cycle Model of Female Labour Supply

In the empirical work in our article on the intertemporal substitution of leisure time for married women (Heckman and MaCurdy (1980)) we inadvertently constrained the estimated intertemporal substitution elasticity to be too high. Since this parameter plays a prominent role in discussions of equilibrium models of the business cycle and since our empirical work has been cited in discussions on this topic (e.g. Hall (1980)), we would like to present a corrected set of empirical results for our model. The period t utility function adopted in this note is (in the notation of our original paper, equation (15))

Deposit Rate‐Setting, Risk Aversion, and the Theory of Depository Financial Intermediaries

IT IS WIDELY RECOGNIZED that the theory of the depository financial intermediary is not well developed.1 There are at least two areas, however, where a thorough understanding of intermediary behavior is essential. First, financial intermediaries are among the most heavily regulated firms in the economy. The effectiveness of this regulation is largely dependent on an understanding of the behavioral characteristics of these intermediaries. Second, the new view of money supply determination, which is gaining renewed interest in the literature, emphasizes the role of intermediary decisions in determining the money supply. According to this view, an understanding of intermediary behavior is essential to understanding money supply movements. Two divergent approaches have been employed in the literature to model the depository financial intermediary. A number of writers e.g., Hart and Jaffee [6], Hyman [9], Kane and Malkiel [11], Parkin [18], and Pyle [24], have adopted the Markowitz-Tobin portfolio theory as their analytical apparatus. The principal advantage of this approch is the explicit treatment of uncertainty which has long played a prominent role in discussions of intermediary behavior. This approach, however, omits two key aspects of the behavior of depository financial intermediaries. First, it is assumed that asset and deposit markets are perfectly competitive so that quantity-setting is the relevant behavioral mode in both markets. This assumption is not applicable to deposit markets since such markets are virtually always highly concentrated where intermediaries set rates and face random deposit levels. The effect of deposit quantity-setting behavior is that liquidity considerations, which have also played a prominent role in discussions of intermediary behavior, are ignored.2 Second, the approach ignores the resource costs incurred in intermediary operations.