Safety In Numbers Research Articles

Social Cues of Safety Can Override Differences in Threat Level

Animals in groups integrate social with directly gathered information about the environment to guide decisions regarding reproduction, foraging, and defence against predatory threats. In the context of predation, usage of social information has acute fitness benefits, aiding the detection of predators, the mounting of concerted defensive responses, or allowing the inference of safety, permitting other beneficial behaviors, such as foraging for food. We previously showed that Drosophila melanogaster exposed to an inescapable visual threat use freezing by surrounding flies as a cue of danger and movement resumption as a cue of safety. Moreover, group responses were primarily guided by the safety cues, resulting in a net social buffering effect, i.e., a graded decrease in freezing behavior with increasing group sizes, similar to other animals. Whether and how different threat levels affect the use of social cues to guide defense responses remains elusive. Here, we investigated this issue by exposing flies individually and in groups to two threat imminences using looms of different speeds. We showed that freezing responses are stronger to the faster looms regardless of social condition. However, social buffering was stronger for groups exposed to the fast looms, such that the increase in freezing caused by the higher threat was less prominent in flies tested in groups than those tested individually. Through artificial control of movement, we created groups composed of moving and freezing flies and by varying group composition, we titrated the motion cues that surrounding flies produce, which were held constant across threat levels. We found that the same level of safety motion cues had a bigger weight on the flies’ decisions when these were exposed to the higher threat, thus overriding differences in perceived threat levels. These findings shed light on the “safety in numbers” effect, revealing the modulation of the saliency of social safety cues across threat intensities, a possible mechanism to regulate costly defensive responses.

Safety in numbers: Criteria for the mass digitisation of obsolete videotape recordings

A key aim of preservation is to retain the essence and goodness of the original creation. In the case of videotape, however, this covers a vast and constantly evolving technological landscape. This paper discusses the substantial challenges faced by audiovisual archivists, who must effectively reinvent their collections of videotape recordings in data form to save them from impending format and carrier obsolescence. This paper describes such challenges as the lack of both skills and parts, and the paramount importance of quality assurance.

Experimentally Estimating Safety in Numbers in a Single-Party Legislature

This article builds on recent experimental work in the Vietnamese National Assembly to explore a critical qualification regarding responsiveness in authoritarian parliaments: delegates grow increasingly responsive as the number of peers possessing the same information rises. We suggest that this reinforcement, or safety-in-numbers, effect arises because speaking in authoritarian assemblies is an intrinsically dangerous task, and delegates are reluctant to do so without confidence in the information they would present. Here we describe the saturation design for the original experiment, theorize safety-in-numbers behavior among authoritarian legislators, and test an additional observable implication of the logic. Consistent with the safety-in-numbers logic, we find that the effects of reinforcement are greater in televised floor speeches than closed-door caucuses.

No safety in numbers: political representation and political violence targeting women in Kenya

ABSTRACT Although quotas and other efforts to increase women’s political participation can ensure that the descriptive representation of women changes dramatically over a short period of time, it is not clear that social norms and political interests can shift as quickly as the distribution of legislative seats. Rather than being interpreted as a move toward a more pluralistic and representative form of government, the increased number of women in office may represent a threat to those who benefit from the status quo, and their resistance to losing their privilege may manifest in myriad forms of discrimination and violence. The relationship between political violence targeting women and increasing numbers of women in politics is often overlooked, despite the recognized potential for “backlash” against women’s empowerment initiatives. This article leverages data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to explore the impact of increasing numbers of women in government on violence targeting women in Kenya. The findings show that rates of political violence targeting women have risen in tandem with the share of seats held by women in the lower chamber. That increasing women’s representation in political office may result in violent backlash against women generally should prompt greater attention from policymakers and academics to patriarchal resistance to women’s advancement.

Safety in numbers: risankizumab for moderate-to-severe psoriasis.

Safety in numbers: risankizumab for moderate-to-severe psoriasis.

Safety in numbers: how social choice theory can inform avalanche risk management

ABSTRACT Avalanche studies have undergone a transition in recent years. Early research focused mainly on environmental factors. More recently, attention has turned to human factors in decision making, such as behavioural and cognitive biases. This article adds a social component to this human turn in avalanche studies. It identifies lessons for decision making by groups of skiers from the perspective of social choice theory, a sub-field of economics, decision theory, philosophy and political science that investigates voting methods and other forms of collective decision making. In the first part, we outline the phenomenon of wisdom of crowds, where groups make better decisions than their individual members. Drawing on the conceptual apparatus of social choice theory and using idealised scenarios, we identify conditions under which wisdom of crowds arises and also explain how and when deciding together can instead result in worse decisions than may be expected from individual group members. In the second part, we use this theoretical understanding to offer practical suggestions for decision making in avalanche terrain. Finally, we make several suggestions for risk management in other outdoor and adventure sports and for outdoor sports education.

Cooperation for innovation: more is not necessarily merrier

PurposeEmbracing a large set of innovation objectives and collaborating with diverse partners have been promoted as a means to improve innovation performance. However, empirical evidence on the relationships between breadth of objectives, breadth of cooperation and innovation performance is limited, particularly in the context of emerging economies. A larger number of objectives and cooperation partners inevitably increases the complexity in organizational alignment, and cooperation eventually leads to diminishing returns. This study adds to the debate on the costs and benefits of cooperation for innovation. Understanding the optimal levels of the breadth of objectives and cooperation supports managerial decision-making and productivity in the practice of cooperation for innovation.Design/methodology/approachOperationalizing breadth of innovation objectives and cooperation via the Turkish Community Innovation Survey data, self-reports reflecting 5,863 firm-level responses between 2006 and 2008 are analysed using tobit and probit models. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to find the optimal levels for breadth of objectives and cooperation.FindingsFirms with greater breadth of innovation objectives experience higher innovation performance; those with greater breadth of cooperation also experience higher innovation performance, but our results indicate the existence of optimal levels of breadth for both innovation objectives and cooperation.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors extend the logic that there is no safety in numbers in cooperation for innovation. If the aim is to enhance innovation performance, managers and policymakers need to pay attention to the number of innovation objectives and the amount of cooperation pursued by firms. However, innovation success may be closely associated with a firm's dynamic capabilities and ability to mobilize its resources. Drawing on organizational learning theories, future research could explore why a lower than maximum level of cooperation may be more conducive to reaching levels of enhanced innovation performance and whether this level is influenced by cognitive processes.Originality/valueThe authors draw attention to the ideal number of innovation objectives and number of cooperating partners required to enhance innovation performance, thus contributing to the debate on the complex relationships between innovation, performance and cooperation in the unique setting of a large developing economy.

Predator-Prey in Tumor-Immune Interactions: A Wrong Model or Just an Incomplete One?

Tumor-immune interactions are often framed as predator-prey. This imperfect analogy describes how immune cells (the predators) hunt and kill immunogenic tumor cells (the prey). It allows for evaluation of tumor cell populations that change over time during immunoediting and it also considers how the immune system changes in response to these alterations. However, two aspects of predator-prey type models are not typically observed in immuno-oncology. The first concerns the conversion of prey killed into predator biomass. In standard predator-prey models, the predator relies on the prey for nutrients, while in the tumor microenvironment the predator and prey compete for resources (e.g. glucose). The second concerns oscillatory dynamics. Standard predator-prey models can show a perpetual cycling in both prey and predator population sizes, while in oncology we see increases in tumor volume and decreases in infiltrating immune cell populations. Here we discuss the applicability of predator-prey models in the context of cancer immunology and evaluate possible causes for discrepancies. Key processes include “safety in numbers”, resource availability, time delays, interference competition, and immunoediting. Finally, we propose a way forward to reconcile differences between model predictions and empirical observations. The immune system is not just predator-prey. Like natural food webs, the immune-tumor community of cell types forms an immune-web of different and identifiable interactions.

Single-cell Hi-C data analysis: safety in numbers.

Over the past decade, genome-wide assays for chromatin interactions in single cells have enabled the study of individual nuclei at unprecedented resolution and throughput. Current chromosome conformation capture techniques survey contacts for up to tens of thousands of individual cells, improving our understanding of genome function in 3D. However, these methods recover a small fraction of all contacts in single cells, requiring specialised processing of sparse interactome data. In this review, we highlight recent advances in methods for the interpretation of single-cell genomic contacts. After discussing the strengths and limitations of these methods, we outline frontiers for future development in this rapidly moving field.

Safety in Numbers? How Reputation and Salience of Misconduct Change Group Size Effect on Punishment

The present study sheds light on the role of social-control agents in punishing misconduct. We posit that social-control agents give each violator a lighter sanction when a great number of people are involved in a misconduct case. However, this relationship is attenuated by violators’ reputation and by the salience of the misconduct to stakeholders before the current case. We test our hypotheses using suspension decisions in 458 doping cases in the context of professional road cycling between 1999 and 2019. Our results indicate that, in general, social-control agents’ punishments depend on internal resource constraints, but when pressure from stakeholders is high, the concern to protect the integrity of the field and their own authority prevails and leads to greater sanctions.

The Participation of Secondary Students With Severe Disabilities in School Clubs.

The purpose of this study was to examine how secondary students with severe disabilities (i.e., severe intellectual disability or autism, multiple disabilities) participate in extracurricular school clubs. Using a qualitative multiple case design, the experiences of three high school students were examined. Data were collected through interviews, observations, and document reviews. A single-case inductive open-coding strategy was utilized across all data sources in which codes and categories emerged, and a final cross-case thematic evaluation was conducted. The cross-case thematic analysis resulted in the following four overarching themes: (a) going with the flow; (b) social obstacles: on the outside looking in; (c) supports provided: too much, too little, just right; and (d) safety in numbers.

Safety in Numbers: How Color Morph Frequency Affects Predation Risk in an Aposematic Moth.

AbstractPolymorphic warning signals in aposematic systems are enigmatic because predator learning should favor the most common form, creating positive frequency-dependent survival. However, many populations exhibit variation in warning signals. There are various selective mechanisms that can counter positive frequency-dependent selection and lead to temporal or spatial warning signal diversification. Examining these mechanisms and their effects requires first confirming whether the most common morphs are favored at both local and regional scales. Empirical examples of this are uncommon and often include potentially confounding factors, such as a lack of knowledge of predator identity and behavior. We tested how bird behavior influences the survival of three coexisting morphs of the aposematic wood tiger moth Arctia plantaginis offered to a sympatric predator (great tit Parus major) at different frequencies. We found that although positive frequency-dependent selection is present, its strength is affected by predator characteristics and varying prey profitability. These results highlight the need to understand predator foraging in natural communities with variable prey defenses in order to better examine how behavioral interactions shape evolutionary outcomes.

Safety in numbers

This is a guest editorial by Ramesh Durvasula, information officer for research at Lilly Research Laboratories. It is adapted from the article “Safety in Numbers: Connecting the Community to Improv...

Safety in numbers: Connecting the community to improve lab safety

Safety in numbers: Connecting the community to improve lab safety

Individual-Level Memory Is Sufficient to Create Spatial Segregation among Neighboring Colonies of Central Place Foragers.

AbstractCentral place foragers often segregate in space, even without signs of direct agonistic interactions. Using parsimonious individual-based simulations, we show that for species with spatial cognitive abilities, individual-level memory of resource availability can be sufficient to cause spatial segregation in the foraging ranges of colonial animals. The shapes of the foraging distributions are governed by commuting costs, the emerging distribution of depleted resources, and the fidelity of foragers to their colonies. When colony fidelity is weak and foragers can easily switch to colonies located closer to favorable foraging grounds, this leads to space partitioning with equidistant borders between neighboring colonies. In contrast, when colony fidelity is strong-for example, because larger colonies provide safety in numbers or individuals are unable to leave-it can create a regional imbalance between resource requirements and resource availability. This leads to nontrivial space-use patterns that propagate through the landscape. Interestingly, while better spatial memory creates more defined boundaries between neighboring colonies, it can lower the average intake rate of the population, suggesting a potential trade-off between an individual's attempt for increased intake and population growth rates.

Safety in numbers: security on campus and the importance of the corporatization of universities

When visiting universities during recruitment tours, many students and parents want to know if the student will be ‘safe’ while attending the institution. This paper uses a qualitative examination of security at a Canadian university to argue that the increase in security measures on campuses is driven by both the desire to provide physical security and the pressure from the increasing corporatization of academia to use security as a recruitment and retention tool. These goals can be served by the same security measures or compete for budgetary priority. Overall, this study demonstrates how the concepts of corporatization, institutional risk management, security theatre, and university branding are present in how the university designs security policies and brands itself as a ‘safe’ environment, and how this can leave students wanting.

Association of Infrastructure and Route Environment Factors with Cycling Injury Risk at Intersection and Non-Intersection Locations: A Case-Crossover Study of Britain.

Objective: This paper examines infrastructural and route environment correlates of cycling injury risk in Britain for commuters riding in the morning peak. Methods: The study uses a case-crossover design which controls for exposure. Control sites from modelled cyclist routes (matched on intersection status) were compared with sites where cyclists were injured. Conditional logistic regression for matched case–control groups was used to compare characteristics of control and injury sites. Results: High streets (defined by clustering of retail premises) raised injury odds by 32%. Main (Class A or primary) roads were riskier than other road types, with injury odds twice that for residential roads. Wider roads, and those with lower gradients increased injury odds. Guard railing raised injury odds by 18%, and petrol stations or car parks by 43%. Bus lanes raised injury odds by 84%. As in other studies, there was a ‘safety in numbers’ effect from more cyclists. Contrary to other analysis, including two recent studies in London, we did not find a protective effect from cycle infrastructure and the presence of painted cycle lanes raised injury odds by 54%. At intersections, both standard and mini roundabouts were associated with injury odds several times higher than other intersections. Presence of traffic signals, with or without an Advanced Stop Line (‘bike box’), had no impact on injury odds. For a cyclist on a main road, intersections with minor roads were riskier than intersections with other main roads. Conclusions: Typical cycling environments in Britain put cyclists at risk, and infrastructure must be improved, particularly on busy main roads, high streets, and bus routes.

Safety in Numbers? A Qualitative Analysis of the 1999 National Firearms Survey

Firearms and their place in American society have been under heavy scrutiny for the past several decades. Previous academic research typically focused on the firearm as a weapon that needs to be regulated, controlled, and the relative fight between various parties concerning second amendment and constitutional rights. However, inadequate scholarly research focuses on the firearm as an abstract, symbolic entity in American culture, and what the firearm represents to Americans in a more complex, abstruse way. This research utilizes the National Firearms Survey (NFS), conducted in 1999, as a mechanism of secondary qualitative analysis to examine the ways in which Americans view their firearms conceptually. After employing qualitative content analysis using data provided by the NFS, we found that Americans seemed to be more concerned about safety and training regarding firearms, as opposed to traditional notions of the firearm as an American symbol of liberty and freedom.

Cycling Injury Risk in London: Impacts of Road Characteristics and Infrastructure

This study of cycling injury risk in London examines impacts of road characteristics and environment, including different types of cycling infrastructure. It controlled for exposure by using a case-crossover method alongside an algorithm developed by Transport for London to predict cyclist routes. When compared to no infrastructure, this study found that protected cycle infrastructure reduced odds of injury by 40-65% in the morning commute, whereas advisory lanes increased injury odds by 34%. Junctions were found to increase injury odds threefold; higher pedestrian density also increased injury odds. This study supports growing evidence of a ‘safety in numbers’ effect.

Odd one in: Oddity within mixed‐species shoals does not affect shoal preference by vagrant tropical damselfish in the presence or absence of a predator

AbstractGrouping behaviour displayed by animals is usually attributed to predation and foraging‐related benefits. The mechanisms of predator protection and foraging efficiency are diverse and often produce conflicting drivers of grouping behaviour. One key conflict is that between group size and phenotypic oddity. Theoretically, individuals should choose the largest available group due to multiple mechanisms associated with “safety in numbers”. However, individuals should also choose the most phenotypically similar group members due to the “predator confusion effect”. This conflict is particularly important within the context of mixed‐species groups because, while their formation may facilitate large group size, phenotypic differences between species may be costly due to oddity. To investigate the interacting effects of shoal size, composition and predator presence on grouping decisions, choice experiments were conducted using displaced tropical damselfish, Abudefduf vaigiensis, settling in temperate south‐eastern Australia (termed vagrants) as a model species. Contrary to predictions, A. vaigiensis displayed no preference for single‐ over mixed‐species shoals, with or without a predator present. These results suggest that shoal composition may not be an important driver of shoal choice in this system. Further, A. vaigiensis showed no preference for larger mixed‐species shoals over smaller single‐species shoals. These outcomes are discussed within the context of climate change‐driven redistribution of A. vaigiensis in temperate south‐eastern Australia.