Strict Division Of Labor Research Articles

Two "What" Networks in the Human Brain.

Ungerleider and Mishkin, in their influential work that relied on detailed anatomical and ablation studies, suggested that visual information is processed along two distinct pathways: the dorsal "where" pathway, primarily responsible for spatial vision, and the ventral "what" pathway, dedicated to object vision. This strict division of labor has faced challenges in light of compelling evidence revealing robust shape and object selectivity within the putative "where" pathway. This article reviews evidence that supports the presence of shape selectivity in the dorsal pathway. A comparative examination of dorsal and ventral object representations in terms of invariance, task dependency, and representational content reveals similarities and differences between the two pathways. Both exhibit some level of tolerance to image transformations and are influenced by tasks, but responses in the dorsal pathway show weaker tolerance and stronger task modulations than those in the ventral pathway. Furthermore, an examination of their representational content highlights a divergence between the responses in the two pathways, suggesting that they are sensitive to distinct features of objects. Collectively, these findings suggest that two networks exist in the human brain for processing object shapes, one in the dorsal and another in the ventral visual cortex. These studies lay the foundation for future research aimed at revealing the precise roles the two "what" networks play in our ability to understand and interact with objects.

Austerity and its alternatives in the European parliament: from the Eurozone crisis to the COVID-19 crisis

This article examines the role of the European parliament (EP) in providing ideational alternatives to austerity in the context of the Eurozone crisis and the COVID-19 crisis. Despite the EP’s limited formal role in EU economic governance, it is a key site for democratic debate and contestation. Analyzing EP debates about austerity allows us to understand the possibilities and limitations for ideational change at the EU level from the perspective of supranational party politics. Through a longitudinal analysis (2012–2021) of EP resolutions on the European Commission’s Annual Growth Surveys, the article asks how ideational battles around austerity have unfolded between the EP’s political groups and what factors have shaped the EP’s positions. Theoretically, the article draws on the literature on ideational political economy and discoursive institutionalism. The article argues that instead of providing alternatives, the EP and its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs have contributed to the ideational hold of austerity due to the weakness of the alternatives of the center-left and their compatibility with austerity. Party-political and institutional factors, such as broad left/right compromises and a strict division of labor between the EP’s committees, further constrain ideational change.

Die vielen Hände des Émile Gallé: Produktionsszenarien der Glaskunst um 1900 zwischen Hand, Kopf und Maschine

Abstract This essay examines the display of artistic labour embedded in Émile Gallé's glass objects. As a starting point, it takes the telling discrepancy between Gallé's representation as an artist working in the solitude of his studio in the well-known portrait painted by Victor Prouvé in 1892 and the actual involvement of many hands organized under a strict division of labour in his glass manufactory. His glass objects thus exist somewhere between the logic of the singular work of art and that of serial production. The essay looks closely at Gallé's exhibition practice at the Salon du Champ-de-Mars as well as at his public statements about the making of his glass works in order to trace contemporary negotiations of the relationship between art and industry and, more broadly, notions of what constituted an adequate modern art around 1900.

Division of Labor or a New Discipline? The Troubled Emergence of Neurosurgery in the Netherlands, 1890–1929

Abstract In the early twentieth century, Amsterdam neuropsychiatrist Louis Muskens (1872–1937) asserted that surgery of the human central nervous system ought to be performed by neurologists rather than surgeons. Only neurologists, he believed, possessed the knowledge, skills, and experience to safely perform these operations. Muskens practiced what he preached, by himself taking up the practice of nervous system surgery. In the Netherlands, however, a strict division of labor had already emerged between surgeons and neurologists. Both regarded surgical performance as an activity to be reserved for surgeons, requiring specific skills, experience, and innate qualities, whereas the diagnosis and localization of nervous system disorders was seen by both as belonging to the domain of neurology, whose practitioners possessed a comprehensive, dynamic, scientific understanding of the nervous system, observational skills, and expertise in diagnostic technology. Even though Muskens’s views and surgical practices were ultimately rejected by both his surgical and neuropsychiatric colleagues, his controversial campaign against the existing division of labor between surgeons and neurologists was an important catalyst for the emergence of neurosurgery as a medical specialty in the Netherlands, one performed by a specially trained “neurosurgeon” exclusively dedicated to nervous system surgery. The case of Muskens provides a striking example of the ways in which professional identities shaped medical practice and the formation of a new discipline.

In-Between Discipline And Control: Ari Aster's Midsommar As An Allegory For Hypercapitalist Society

Horror’s disruptive quality in that it continually demonstrates how the monstrous and evil circulate, invading complacent individuals, turning them into what they think as their opposites. This means that horror films possess a potential to show people that there is a possibility that the evil of the primal and primitive resides behind the veil of moral superiority and intellectual achievement of the modern world. Ari Aster’s horror film entitled Midsommar (2019) exploits the metaphorical power of the horror in revealing how the archaic is actually in the possession of the modern/“cultured”/“civilized”. The film is a reflection of the monstrosity of the systems that govern the contemporary society—a hypercapitalist society that is in-between Disciplinary Society and the Society of Control; Society of (Semi-)Control. This study mainly draws from Deleuze, Foucault, and Neo-Marxists. Data is collected by using observation method. As for data analysis methods, this study utilizes formalist technique called close reading and then apply the theoretical frameworks in an accordance with the methodological implications found in them. It is found that the narrative and visual elements of the film allegorically depict crucial aspects of a Disciplinary Society, Society of (Semi-)Control, and hypercapitalist society. The film unveils the oppressive and repressive nature of late-stage capitalism and Society of (Semi-)Control. This is shown through the customary suicide of old people because they are assumed to have past their productive years in a ritual called ättestupa; the strict division of labor; the deliberate reproduction of disable people; and the restriction to express one’s ownership of personal pain and sadness could be interpreted as elements that construct an allegory for a hypercapitalist society. Moreover, through its heroine, Dani, Midsommar also explores the process of how Disciplinary Society transforms into Society of (Semi-)Control.

Regulating Unfair Trading Practices in the EU Agri-food Supply Chain: a Case of Counterproductive Regulation?

Unfair trading practices (UTPs) imposed by parties with superior power in the context of a vertical relationship are an issue at the periphery of competition law, private law, and, sometimes, sectoral regulation. For a long time, the mainstream competition law approach has been to relegate such issues to other areas of law and regulation. In the EU, where complaints about the prevalence of such practices in the agricultural and food supply chain have been voiced for decades, the approach of the European Commission has been to pursue a strict separation between competition issues and fair-trading issues. This article questions the reasonableness of such a strict division of labour. Taking the sum of various initiatives undertaken to regulate UTPs in the agri-food supply chain as a case study, it argues that the effect of limiting competition law enforcement on this issue has been counterproductive. The article firstly explains the background of the problem and the issue of UTPs in the agri-food supply chain. Secondly, it maps the various legislative developments which have taken place at the EU Member State level. Thirdly, by referring to Grabosky’s (1995) regulatory studies typology of counterproductive regulation, the article focuses attention on some of the perverse side effects which arise when regulation of power imbalances and UTPs occurs at the national level in the context of an integrated market like the EU. In light of the analysis, it expresses doubt that these pitfalls will be fully corrected by Directive 2019/633 on UTPs in the food supply chain. The conclusion is that national legislative developments have not been able to make up for the lack of supra-national enforcement of EU competition law on this issue and have possibly even exacerbated the problem at hand. The article concludes that supranational competition law enforcement can play a key role in addressing the fundamental problems underlying business-to-business unfair trading practices. It argues that this role cannot be played by other instruments in the context of an integrated market with multi-level governance. This article shows that while competition law may not be capable of solving all the problems with UTPs, it remains indispensable in safeguarding the proper functioning of the internal market as well as the interests of consumers and taxpayers.

Intimate Relations

Blue Mountain is a 35-minute work for two actors and orchestra. It was commissioned by the Ultima Festival, and premiered in 2014 by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. The Ultima festival challenged me – being both a composer and writer – to make something where I wrote both text and music. Interestingly, I hadn’t really thought of that before, writing text to my own music – or music to my own text. This is a very common thing in popular music, the songwriter. But in the lied, the orchestral piece or indeed in opera, there is a strict division of labour between composer and writer. There are exceptions, most famously Wagner, who did libretto, music and staging for his operas. And 20th century composers like Olivier Messiaen, who wrote his own poems for his music – or Luciano Berio, who made a collage of such detail that it the text arguably became his own in Sinfonia. But this relationship is often a convoluted one, not often discussed in the tradition of musical analysis where text tend to be taken as a given, not subjected to the same rigorous scrutiny that is often the case with music. This exposition is an attempt to unfold this process of composing with both words and music. A key challenge has been to make the text an intrinsic part of the performance situation, and the music something more than mere accompaniment to narration. To render the words meaningless without the music and vice versa. So the question that emerged was how music and words can be not only equal partners, but also yield a new species of music/text? A second questions follows en suite, and that is what challenges the conflation of different roles – the writer and the composer – presents? I will try to address these questions through a discussion of the methods applied in Blue Mountain, the results they have yielded, and the challenges this work has posed.

A unified model of Hymenopteran preadaptations that trigger the evolutionary transition to eusociality

Explaining the origin of eusociality, with strict division of labour between workers and reproductives, remains one of evolutionary biology’s greatest challenges. Specific combinations of genetic, behavioural and demographic traits in Hymenoptera are thought to explain their relatively high frequency of eusociality, but quantitative models integrating such preadaptations are lacking. Here we use mathematical models to show that the joint evolution of helping behaviour and maternal sex ratio adjustment can synergistically trigger both a behavioural change from solitary to eusocial breeding, and a demographic change from a life cycle with two reproductive broods to a life cycle in which an unmated cohort of female workers precedes a final generation of dispersing reproductives. Specific suits of preadaptations are particularly favourable to the evolution of eusociality: lifetime monogamy, bivoltinism with male generation overlap, hibernation of mated females and haplodiploidy with maternal sex ratio adjustment. The joint effects of these preadaptations may explain the abundance of eusociality in the Hymenoptera and its virtual absence in other haplodiploid lineages.

TAp73 is essential for germ cell adhesion and maturation in testis

A core evolutionary function of the p53 family is to protect the genomic integrity of gametes. However, the role of p73 in the male germ line is unknown. Here, we reveal that TAp73 unexpectedly functions as an adhesion and maturation factor of the seminiferous epithelium orchestrating spermiogenesis. TAp73 knockout (TAp73KO) and p73KO mice, but not ΔNp73KO mice, display a "near-empty seminiferous tubule" phenotype due to massive premature loss of immature germ cells. The cellular basis of this phenotype is defective cell-cell adhesions of developing germ cells to Sertoli nurse cells, with likely secondary degeneration of Sertoli cells, including the blood-testis barrier, which leads to disruption of the adhesive integrity and maturation of the germ epithelium. At the molecular level, TAp73, which is produced in germ cells, controls a coordinated transcriptional program of adhesion- and migration-related proteins including peptidase inhibitors, proteases, receptors, and integrins required for germ-Sertoli cell adhesion and dynamic junctional restructuring. Thus, we propose the testis as a unique organ with strict division of labor among all family members: p63 and p53 safeguard germ line fidelity, whereas TAp73 ensures fertility by enabling sperm maturation.

Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture by Francis X Hezel, sj (review)

Reviewed by: Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture by Francis X Hezel, sj Joseph H Genz Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture, by Francis X Hezel, sj. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013. isbn 978-0-8248-3661-0, xii + 182 pages, maps, suggested reading, index. Cloth, us$27.00. Making Sense of Micronesia sensitively and vividly depicts the cultures of Micronesia for readers unfamiliar with the region and its inhabitants. Drawing on more than four decades of personal experiences as a Jesuit priest and based on insights gleaned from interviews, conversations, and research, Francis X Hezel engagingly presents his own process of slowly stumbling toward cultural knowledge. Shaped by embarrassing moments, awkward encounters, and cultural collisions, the result is an enjoyable glimpse—what he at one point terms a “cultural guidebook” (165)—into the general cultural patterning of the Islanders of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. As Hezel acknowledges, many features of this synthesis may resonate with other island groups in Micronesia and the broader Pacific. After the introductory chapter on the history of cultural change and the social context of Micronesia, the book’s twelve main chapters each delve into and seek to illuminate one key aspect of general Micronesian culture that may seem at first glance to be mystifying to foreigners. After opening each chapter with a revealing vignette, Hezel examines each theme from his emergent understanding of the ways in which Micronesians think about each topic while also suggesting how the underlying traditions have been changing even as they endure. Although the chapters build on each other, they can also be read as stand-alone sections focusing on and highlighting particular themes. For instance, in the first two chapters Hezel writes of the persistence of a personalized face to every aspect of Island life, and he connects this to the primacy of a collective identity and the importance of cooperation and solidarity. These three “peaks in the cultural landscape” (166) are carefully interwoven in the remaining chapters, which speak to the following issues: generosity and the redistribution of wealth; circumspection and the guarding of information; the importance and meaning of silences when communicating; the significance of strong forms of respect; the private and familial nature of sex; the strict division of labor and the indirect power of women in society; culturally patterned emotional responses of love, affection, uncertainty, and loss; and culturally mediated mechanisms for coping with conflict. In the summary chapter, Hezel importantly outlines the ways in which the traditional Micronesian worldview clashes with the contemporary aims of foreign-imposed economic development. In this work, Hezel complements [End Page 569] his more academic treatment of related topics in The New Shape of Old Island Cultures: A Half Century of Social Change in Micronesia (2001). By chronicling his own reallife experiences and those of others in the tradition of the best reflective ethnographic writing, he brings the narrative to life while underscoring a lifetime’s dedication to understanding local people and their beliefs and practices. For instance, we witness the tragedy of a teenager named Tomaso, who committed suicide after his father’s refusal of a request for money; we feel the confusion and embarrassment when a volunteer compliments the beauty of a student’s sister; we notice an apparent and perhaps misleading lack of affection between a husband and wife when one of them departs on an international flight; and we follow Hezel to the woods after a memorable meal where he vomits up his dinner with complete lack of secrecy. Having spent considerable time in the region, I can relate to the poignancy of nearly every vignette with great empathy. Hezel acknowledges the possibilities and limitations of this approach. Caught in a nearly timeless present, a deliberate blurring of the complexities of the numerous Island societies within this region enables Hezel to generalize about a singular Micronesian culture in comparative counterpoint to a Western worldview. This works. The many vignettes, written for broad appeal, resonate with anyone who has either spent time in Micronesia or has engaged with Micronesians abroad, and this invites the...

Gendered Sámi Childhoods: Traditions in the Lule Sámi Region 1100–1950

The aim of the paper is to elucidate how Sámi people in traditional society brought up their children and how traditional knowledge was transferred. The question of how children gained independence is also raised and the differences involved with the upbringing of girls and boys is explored. Source material from archaeology, history and anthropology are used as well as two Sámi novels from the early 1900s which document traditional Sámi life. The theoretical framework is elucidated, and traditional Sámi socio-cultural institutions are included as background information. Changes have occurred in religious life due to missionary work in the 1700s and in the middle of the 1800s. Elements of traditional Sámi religion have survived in connection with childbirth and naming, but puberty is sparsely documented. Sámi children have traditionally been brought up to be independent and to participate in adult activities. A strict division of labour between females and males is expressed in traditional Sámi handicraft; duodje. The transfer of gender-based knowledge dates back to the Middle Ages.

Phylogenetic and Transcriptomic Analysis of Chemosensory Receptors in a Pair of Divergent Ant Species Reveals Sex-Specific Signatures of Odor Coding

Ants are a highly successful family of insects that thrive in a variety of habitats across the world. Perhaps their best-known features are complex social organization and strict division of labor, separating reproduction from the day-to-day maintenance and care of the colony, as well as strict discrimination against foreign individuals. Since these social characteristics in ants are thought to be mediated by semiochemicals, a thorough analysis of these signals, and the receptors that detect them, is critical in revealing mechanisms that lead to stereotypic behaviors. To address these questions, we have defined and characterized the major chemoreceptor families in a pair of behaviorally and evolutionarily distinct ant species, Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. Through comprehensive re-annotation, we show that these ant species harbor some of the largest yet known repertoires of odorant receptors (Ors) among insects, as well as a more modest number of gustatory receptors (Grs) and variant ionotropic glutamate receptors (Irs). Our phylogenetic analyses further demonstrate remarkably rapid gains and losses of ant Ors, while Grs and Irs have also experienced birth-and-death evolution to different degrees. In addition, comparisons of antennal transcriptomes between sexes identify many chemoreceptors that are differentially expressed between males and females and between species. We have also revealed an agonist for a worker-enriched OR from C. floridanus, representing the first case of a heterologously characterized ant tuning Or. Collectively, our analysis reveals a large number of ant chemoreceptors exhibiting patterns of differential expression and evolution consistent with sex/species-specific functions. These differentially expressed genes are likely associated with sex-based differences, as well as the radically different social lifestyles observed between C. floridanus and H. saltator, and thus are targets for further functional characterization. Our findings represent an important advance toward understanding the molecular basis of social interactions and the differential chemical ecologies among ant species.

Work Organization and Professionalization in New Media Industry – The Case of a Finnish Company

The article explores work organization in one new media company in a turning point of the business, in the 2000s. The company had changed from a small workshop to a medium-sized company in a few years. Growth, increasing competition, and uncertainty of profitability had altered the management and work organization. An approach of governance, aimed at efficiency and economy, was systematically implemented; the working methods were standardized, strict division of labor was carried out, and the professional qualifications were mainstreamed according to the business. The professional employees appreciated the new business-like management, but discovered that their opportunities for creative work were diminished with decreasing resources and a new project management pattern.

The New Political Role of Business in a Globalized World: A Review of a New Perspective on CSR and its Implications for the Firm, Governance, and Democracy

abstractScholars in management and economics widely share the assumption that business firms focus on profits only, while it is the task of the state system to provide public goods. In this view business firms are conceived of as economic actors, and governments and their state agencies are considered the only political actors. We suggest that, under the conditions of globalization, the strict division of labour between private business and nation‐state governance does not hold any more. Many business firms have started to assume social and political responsibilities that go beyond legal requirements and fill the regulatory vacuum in global governance. Our review of the literature shows that there are a growing number of publications from various disciplines that propose a politicized concept of corporate social responsibility. We consider the implications of this new perspective for theorizing about the business firm, governance, and democracy.

History by Parliamentary Vote: Science, Ethics and Politics in the Lumumba Commission

Since the end of the Cold War an increasing number of countries have set up government-appointed ‘historical commissions’, often staffed or assisted by historians, to settle disputes about the past. This article analyzes the phenomenon of ‘commissioned history’ by focusing on the case of the Belgian parliamentary commission of inquiry which was active between 2000 and 2002 and had to investigate Belgium’s responsibility in the murder of the Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961. It especially addresses the questions how the ‘Lumumba commission’ attempted to create a hegemonic memory around the (post)colonial past and how history, politics, and ethics were combined in this attempt. Despite official assertions about a strict division of labour between experts and politicians and about the ‘absolute independence and freedom’ granted to the former, the article argues that a problematic ‘osmosis’ of history and politics took place. However, it is argued that this osmosis did not result from partisanship on the side of the experts, nor from an active interference by the politicians, but from a (probably unconscious) attitude that the experts developed in which they appropriated a part of the meta-political values and the habitus of their law-making employers.

The functional organization of resin work in honeybee colonies

Resin is an important building material in the nests of honeybees, but little is known about how it is handled within the nest and how its collection is controlled. We studied the functional organization of resin work to better understand how a colony adaptively controls its intake of resin. Two hypotheses have been proposed for how resin collectors stay informed of the need for additional resin: (1) the unloading difficulty hypothesis (resin need is sensed indirectly by the unloading delay) and (2) the caulking activity hypothesis (resin need is sensed directly while engaged in using resin). A falsifiable prediction of the latter hypothesis, but not of the former, is that resin collectors not only gather resin outside the hive but also regularly handle resin inside the hive (taking it from other bees and using it to caulk crevices). Consistent with this prediction are our findings that in the resin sector of a colony’s economy, unlike in the pollen, nectar, and water sectors, there is no strict division of labor between the collectors and the users of a material. Over the course of a day, bees seen collecting resin were also commonly seen using resin. Moreover, we found that the unloading locations of resin collectors are unlike those of water and nectar collectors, being deep inside the hive (at the sites of resin use) rather than at the hive entrance. This arrangement facilitates the engagement in resin use by resin collectors. We conclude that the caulking activity hypothesis is well-supported, but that the unloading difficulty hypothesis also remains viable, for we found that resin collectors experience variable delays in getting rid of their loads, from less than 15 min to more than an hour, consistent with this hypothesis. The stage is now set for experimental tests of these two hypotheses. Both may be correct, which if true will imply that social insect workers, despite their small brains, can acquire and integrate information from multiple sources to improve their knowledge of conditions within the colony.

A political explanation of economic growth: state survival, bureaucratic politics, and private enterprises in the making of Taiwan's economy, 1950-1985

Taiwan is a classic case of export-led industrialization. But unlike South Korea and Japan, where large firms have been the major exporters, before the late 1980s Taiwan's successful exporters were overwhelmingly small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs became the engine of the entire economy, yet for many years the state virtually ignored the SMEs and their role as exporters. What factors account for the success of the SMEs and their benign neglect by the state? The key was a strict division of labor: state and large private enterprises jointly monopolized the domestic market. This gave the SMEs a free run in export markets. How did this industrial structure come into being? The author argues that it was an unintended consequence of the state's policy toward the private sector and its political strategies for managing societal forces. Indeed, Taiwan's unique industrial structure was shaped by both the witting and the unwitting interactions of the state and the private sector. Moreover, as the author shows, this industrial policy was a product of the internal politics of the economic bureaucracy, and the formulation and implementation of economic policy hinged on mechanisms for solving differences within the state.

Onarigami: Holy Women in the Twentieth Century

This paper intends to show how the belief in onarigami, that is, the spiritual power of women, which gave the Okinawan women an important social and political role in the dual rule characteristic of the kingdom of Ryukyu,is still relevant today for the rebuilding of Okinawan women's identity. The ambilineal descent groups recruiting members from both the father's and the mother's side was ideal in fostering an egalitarian society, albeit with a rather strict division of labor, with opportunities to wield power open to both sexes, for the women as state or village priestesses. The need to investigate the matter from an historical point of view is underscored by the recent publication of two works, which will be reviewed here, by a female and a male, a Western and Japanese scholar respectively, who both interpreted Okinawan material without taking the local history into account. Based on her own research, the author shows the roots of the belief in onarigami, traces the steps of historical decline of female religious power throughout the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, and discusses the revival of the identity of women as onarigami towards the end of the last century.

Senior Civil Servants and Bureaucratic Change in Belgium

The Belgian civil service used to be a Weberian bureaucracy, with a strict division of labor between civil servants and politicians, administrative careers based on both seniority and partisan patronage, and a technocratic culture coupled with a high level of alienation from both politics and politicians. Administrative reform came in the wake of the constitutional reform that transformed unitary Belgium into a federal state with several governments, each with a civil service of its own. The fiscal crisis prompted them to look favorably on the promises of New Public Management (NPM). The new Flemish government was first to take advantage of this opportunity, as it had the financial resources, the tendency to refer to Anglo‐Saxon and Dutch examples, and the right political and administrative leadership.The staying power of these as yet precarious reforms depends on the continuity of political leadership, the establishment of an administrative culture matching the institutional innovations, and resistance to the endemic temptation to use them for partisan purposes.

Waste management in the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica

Unlike most leaf-cutting ants, which have underground waste dumps, the leaf-cutting ant Atta colombica dumps waste in a heap outside the nest. Waste is hazardous, as it is contaminated with pathogens. We investigated the organization of the workforce involved in outside-nest tasks (foraging, waste disposal) and quantified task switching and heap location to test hypotheses that these tasks are organized to minimize contact between the heap and foraging entrances and trails. Waste management is an important task: 11% of externally working ants were either transporting waste or manipulating waste on the heap, and the other 89% were foragers. There is strict division of labor between foragers and waste workers, with no task switching. Waste management also has division of labor and is undertaken by transporters that carry waste to the heap margins and heap workers that manage the heap. Waste heaps are always located downhill from nest entrances. The distance to the waste heap is positively related to colony size and negatively related to slope. Foraging trails avoid the heap, with 92% of trails going away from the heap. This avoidance behavior is costly, increasing foraging trail length by at least 6%. Waste management in A. colombica is a sophisticated system that encompasses both work and spatial organization. This organization is probably adaptive in reducing disease transmission. Division of labor separates waste management from foraging, reducing the likelihood of foragers becoming contaminated with waste. The downhill location of heaps reduces waste entering entrances during rain. The orientation of foraging trails reduces the possibility of foragers becoming accidentally contaminated with waste.