scholarly journals An Ethogram Developed on Captive Eastern Coyotes Canis latrans

2006 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan G. Way ◽  
Dean-Lorenz M. Szumylo ◽  
Eric G. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Canis Latrans ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Behavioral Patterns ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Ongoing Development

We studied capture Eastern Coyotes (Canis latrans) from 27-585 days of age and compiled an ethogram on them. A total of 72247 15-sec samples were taken, amounting to 301 h of field time varying between 59.4–61.3 h per Coyote. A total of 540 behavioral patterns was observed amongst the 16 behaviour categories ranging from 9 (miscellaneous) to 72 (explore/investigate) action patterns per parent category. The 16 parent categories that we believed best described and appropriately sorted the behavioural actions were resting, sitting, sitting1, sitting2, standing, traveling, explore/investigating, hunting, feeding, infantile, greeting, self play, play initiating, playing, agonistic, and miscellaneous. Exploring accounted for >31% of all of the behaviours observed with resting and sitting (combined), standing, traveling, and play as categories decreasing in order of most to least frequent. Despite some omissions in our ethogram and drift associated with its ongoing development, we believe that the large amount of data collected made it rigorous enough to be a useful guide for the species. We argue that although future research will no doubt add to and/or modify components of it, its ease of use in the field (in captivity or in the wild) and it being the first complete ethogram described for the species, make it a useful tool for future researchers.

scholarly journals Numerical assessment in the wild: insights from social carnivores

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1740) ◽  
pp. 20160508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Benson-Amram ◽  
Geoff Gilfillan ◽  
Karen McComb
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Numerical Assessment ◽  
Individual Discrimination ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
Assessment Skills ◽  
In The Wild

Playback experiments have proved to be a useful tool to investigate the extent to which wild animals understand numerical concepts and the factors that play into their decisions to respond to different numbers of vocalizing conspecifics. In particular, playback experiments have broadened our understanding of the cognitive abilities of historically understudied species that are challenging to test in the traditional laboratory, such as members of the Order Carnivora. Additionally, playback experiments allow us to assess the importance of numerical information versus other ecologically important variables when animals are making adaptive decisions in their natural habitats. Here, we begin by reviewing what we know about quantity discrimination in carnivores from studies conducted in captivity. We then review a series of playback experiments conducted with wild social carnivores, including African lions, spotted hyenas and wolves, which demonstrate that these animals can assess the number of conspecifics calling and respond based on numerical advantage. We discuss how the wild studies complement those conducted in captivity and allow us to gain insights into why wild animals may not always respond based solely on differences in quantity. We then consider the key roles that individual discrimination and cross-modal recognition play in the ability of animals to assess the number of conspecifics vocalizing nearby. Finally, we explore new directions for future research in this area, highlighting in particular the need for further work on the cognitive basis of numerical assessment skills and experimental paradigms that can be effective in both captive and wild settings. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The origins of numerical abilities’.

Evidence for reduced genetic variation in severely deformed juvenile salmonids

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (12) ◽  
pp. 2700-2707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katriina Tiira ◽  
Jorma Piironen ◽  
Craig R Primmer
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Variation ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Salmo Trutta ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Early Life Stages ◽  
Juvenile Salmonids ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild

Inbreeding is one of the factors that can result in high infant mortality. In many species, however, mortality at early life stages is very difficult to observe in the wild and estimates from later life stages may therefore underestimate the effects of reduced genetic variability on fitness. Using microsatellites, we compared the amount of genetic variation in severely deformed fry of Lake Saimaa salmon (Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) hatchery brood stocks with normal fry from the same brood stocks. We observed significantly lower standardized heterozygosity and higher internal relatedness values for deformed fry of both species compared with normal fry. Our results suggest that (i) inbreeding can be an important factor causing severe deformities in juvenile salmonids and (ii) high mortality of severely deformed low heterozygosity individuals in early life stages may partly explain why some studies exploring heterozygosity–fitness correlations fail to find any association. An important direction for future research on this topic will be to compare the results of experiments conducted in captivity with those of similar experiments conducted in wild or semi-wild conditions, as such studies would help to better understand the direct relevance of research conducted in captivity with respect to the conservation of wild populations.

Temple Food As a Sustainable Tourism Attraction: Ecogastronomic Buddhist Heritage and Regional Development in South Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Anne H.J. Lee ◽  
Geoffrey Wall
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Regional Development ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Sustainable Tourism ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Rich Description ◽  
Food Programs ◽  
Ongoing Development ◽  
Narrative Interpretation

This research explores Buddhist heritage-based tourism in South Korea. It examines temple food experiences provided in tandem with templestay programs that emphasize the Buddhist cooking tradition and share aspects of traditional Buddhist culture with visitors. Based primarily on participant observation, this ecologically friendly form of tourism is described and the ongoing development of temple food programs is documented. A "person-centric" perception is adopted from two perspectives: an emphasis on the holistic well-being of individual visitors, and the importance of a specific person in the provision of tourism experiences. Rich description and narrative interpretation are used to explain the phenomenon and provide a foundation on which future research can be grounded.

Online Retail Service Quality: Scale Development and Validation

2021 ◽  
pp. 097226292110112
Author(s):  
Biranchi Narayan Swar ◽  
Rajesh Panda
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Measurement Scale ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Market Place ◽  
Online Retail ◽  
Online Retailers ◽  
Retail Service ◽  
Retail Service Quality

The growth of online retailing has created an opportunity to create a scale specifically for online retail services. At the same time, the increasing rate of internet penetration in India coupled with electronic banking and wallets has formed new market place for many online retailers. In this context, to gain competitive advantage, the online retailers should provide better service quality. Thus, the present research tries to know the various constructs of retail service quality (RSQ) in online format and develop a measurement scale. The study has borrowed the constructs from ‘Retail Service Quality’ (RSQ) and ‘Technology Acceptance Model’ (TAM). For this purpose, we collected data from 600 respondents. The scale has been confirmed and validated by using CFA. The study confirmed that online RSQ (ORSQ) scale consists of four constructs: ‘Ease of Use’, ‘Problem Solving’, ‘Policy’ and ‘Reliability’ with 18 variables. The article has concluded and validated a scale for ORSQ which can help the online retailers to design their service offering. The implications of the ORSQ scale for practitioners, as well as for future research, are discussed in this article.

scholarly journals Multi-Period Portfolio Optimization with Investor Views under Regime Switching

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Razvan Oprisor ◽  
Roy Kwon
Keyword(s):  
Regime Switching ◽  
Portfolio Allocation ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Expected Return ◽  
Asset Return ◽  
Market Portfolio ◽  
New Information ◽  
Trading Model ◽  
Portfolio Managers

We propose a novel multi-period trading model that allows portfolio managers to perform optimal portfolio allocation while incorporating their interpretable investment views. This model’s significant advantage is its intuitive and reactive design that incorporates the latest asset return regimes to quantitatively solve managers’ question: how certain should one be that a given investment view is occurring? First, we describe a framework for multi-period portfolio allocation formulated as a convex optimization problem that trades off expected return, risk and transaction costs. Using a framework borrowed from model predictive control introduced by Boyd et al., we employ optimization to plan a sequence of trades using forecasts of future quantities, only the first set being executed. Multi-period trading lends itself to dynamic readjustment of the portfolio when gaining new information. Second, we use the Black-Litterman model to combine investment views specified in a simple linear combination based format with the market portfolio. A data-driven method to adjust the confidence in the manager’s views by comparing them to dynamically updated regime-switching forecasts is proposed. Our contribution is to incorporate both multi-period trading and interpretable investment views into one framework and offer a novel method of using regime-switching to determine each view’s confidence. This method replaces portfolio managers’ need to provide estimated confidence levels for their views, substituting them with a dynamic quantitative approach. The framework is reactive, tractable and tested on 15 years of daily historical data. In a numerical example, this method’s benefits are found to deliver higher excess returns for the same degree of risk in both the case when an investment view proves to be correct, but, more notably, also the case when a view proves to be incorrect. To facilitate ease of use and future research, we also developed an open-source software library that replicates our results.

scholarly journals On the modulation and maintenance of hibernation in captive dwarf lemurs

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina B. Blanco ◽  
Lydia K. Greene ◽  
Robert Schopler ◽  
Cathy V. Williams ◽  
Danielle Lynch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Restriction ◽  
Metabolic Disorders ◽  
Biological Rhythms ◽  
Food Ingestion ◽  
Ambient Temperatures ◽  
In Captivity ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Cheirogaleus Medius ◽  
Save Energy ◽  
Metabolic Strategies

AbstractIn nature, photoperiod signals environmental seasonality and is a strong selective “zeitgeber” that synchronizes biological rhythms. For animals facing seasonal environmental challenges and energetic bottlenecks, daily torpor and hibernation are two metabolic strategies that can save energy. In the wild, the dwarf lemurs of Madagascar are obligate hibernators, hibernating between 3 and 7 months a year. In captivity, however, dwarf lemurs generally express torpor for periods far shorter than the hibernation season in Madagascar. We investigated whether fat-tailed dwarf lemurs (Cheirogaleus medius) housed at the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) could hibernate, by subjecting 8 individuals to husbandry conditions more in accord with those in Madagascar, including alternating photoperiods, low ambient temperatures, and food restriction. All dwarf lemurs displayed daily and multiday torpor bouts, including bouts lasting ~ 11 days. Ambient temperature was the greatest predictor of torpor bout duration, and food ingestion and night length also played a role. Unlike their wild counterparts, who rarely leave their hibernacula and do not feed during hibernation, DLC dwarf lemurs sporadically moved and ate. While demonstrating that captive dwarf lemurs are physiologically capable of hibernation, we argue that facilitating their hibernation serves both husbandry and research goals: first, it enables lemurs to express the biphasic phenotypes (fattening and fat depletion) that are characteristic of their wild conspecifics; second, by “renaturalizing” dwarf lemurs in captivity, they will emerge a better model for understanding both metabolic extremes in primates generally and metabolic disorders in humans specifically.

scholarly journals Systematic Design and Evaluation of a Citation Function Classification Scheme in Indonesian Journals

Publications ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Yaniasih Yaniasih ◽  
Indra Budi
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Citation Function ◽  
Compilation Process ◽  
Long Short Term Memory

Classifying citations according to function has many benefits when it comes to information retrieval tasks, scholarly communication studies, and ranking metric developments. Many citation function classification schemes have been proposed, but most of them have not been systematically designed for an extensive literature-based compilation process. Many schemes were also not evaluated properly before being used for classification experiments utilizing large datasets. This paper aimed to build and evaluate new citation function categories based upon sufficient scientific evidence. A total of 2153 citation sentences were collected from Indonesian journal articles for our dataset. To identify the new categories, a literature survey was conducted, analyses and groupings of category meanings were carried out, and then categories were selected based on the dataset’s characteristics and the purpose of the classification. The evaluation used five criteria: coherence, ease, utility, balance, and coverage. Fleiss’ kappa and automatic classification metrics using machine learning and deep learning algorithms were used to assess the criteria. These methods resulted in five citation function categories. The scheme’s coherence and ease of use were quite good, as indicated by an inter-annotator agreement value of 0.659 and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) F1-score of 0.93. According to the balance and coverage criteria, the scheme still needs to be improved. This research data was limited to journals in food science published in Indonesia. Future research will involve classifying the citation function using a massive dataset collected from various scientific fields and published from some representative countries, as well as applying improved annotation schemes and deep learning methods.

scholarly journals Review of Electrochemical DNA Biosensors for Detecting Food Borne Pathogens

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (22) ◽  
pp. 4916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiaoyun Wu ◽  
Yunzhe Zhang ◽  
Qian Yang ◽  
Ning Yuan ◽  
Wei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Pathogen Detection ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Electrochemical Techniques ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Detection Methods ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dna Biosensors ◽  
Food Borne Pathogens ◽  
Chip Technology ◽  
Food Borne

The vital importance of rapid and accurate detection of food borne pathogens has driven the development of biosensor to prevent food borne illness outbreaks. Electrochemical DNA biosensors offer such merits as rapid response, high sensitivity, low cost, and ease of use. This review covers the following three aspects: food borne pathogens and conventional detection methods, the design and fabrication of electrochemical DNA biosensors and several techniques for improving sensitivity of biosensors. We highlight the main bioreceptors and immobilizing methods on sensing interface, electrochemical techniques, electrochemical indicators, nanotechnology, and nucleic acid-based amplification. Finally, in view of the existing shortcomings of electrochemical DNA biosensors in the field of food borne pathogen detection, we also predict and prospect future research focuses from the following five aspects: specific bioreceptors (improving specificity), nanomaterials (enhancing sensitivity), microfluidic chip technology (realizing automate operation), paper-based biosensors (reducing detection cost), and smartphones or other mobile devices (simplifying signal reading devices).

scholarly journals Mask-Making and Drawing as Method: Arts-Based Approaches to Data Collection With War-Affected Children

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 160940691983247
Author(s):  
Amber Green ◽  
Myriam Denov
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Visual Methods ◽  
Conflict Zones ◽  
Mask Making ◽  
In Captivity

Globally, the numbers of children living in conflict zones and displaced by war have risen dramatically over the past two decades, and with this, scholarly attention to the impacts of war on children. More recently, researchers have examined how war-affected children are being studied, revealing important shortcomings. These limitations relate to the lack of child participation in research, the need for researchers to engage children in the research process as “active agents” rather than “passive objects” under study, as well as the need for researchers to pay closer attention to ethical dilemmas associated with researching war-affected children. To address these realities, innovative research methods that can be adapted across diverse sociocultural contexts are warranted. In light of these shortcomings, our research team integrated two arts-based methods: mask-making and drawing, alongside traditional qualitative data collection methods with a particularly marginalized population of young people: children born in captivity within the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda. In this article, we provide information on the context of northern Uganda. We describe how the use of mask-making and drawing was used as data gathering tools and the ways in which these arts-based methods had important benefits for the research participants, researchers, and impacted on the validity of the research as a whole. We propose that the use of these participatory visual methods enriched the themes elicited through more traditional methods. The article describes how these arts-based mediums fostered community building among children typically excluded from their communities and were successful as a tool to build trust between participants and the research team when exploring sensitive topics. The article concludes with implications for future research with war-affected children.

scholarly journals Electronic Health Record Acceptance by Physicians: A Single Hospital Experience in Daily Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-17
Author(s):  
Andrija Pavlovic ◽  
Nina Rajovic ◽  
Jasmina Pavlovic Stojanovic ◽  
Debora Akinyombo ◽  
Milica Ugljesic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Technology Acceptance ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Electronic Health

Introduction: Potential benefits of implementing an electronic health record (EHR) to increase the efficiency of health services and improve the quality of health care are often obstructed by the unwillingness of the users themselves to accept and use the available systems. Aim: The aim of this study was to identify factors that influence the acceptance of the use of an EHR by physicians in the daily practice of hospital health care. Material and Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted among physicians in the General Hospital Pancevo, Serbia. An anonymous questionnaire, developed according to the technology acceptance model (TAM), was used for the assessment of EHR acceptance. The response rate was 91%. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. A logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors influencing the acceptance of the use of EHR. Results: The study population included 156 physicians. The mean age was 46.4 ± 10.4 years, 58.8% participants were female. Half of the respondents (50.1%) supported the use of EHR in comparison to paper patient records. In multivariate logistic regression modeling of social and technical factors, ease of use, usefulness, and attitudes towards use of EHR as determinants of the EHR acceptance, the following predictors were identified: use of a computer outside of the office for reading daily newspapers (p = 0.005), EHR providing a greater amount of valuable information (p = 0.007), improvement in the productivity by EHR use (p < 0.001), and a statement that using EHR is a good idea (p = 0.014). Overall the percentage of correct classifications in the model was 83.9%. Conclusion: In this research, determinants of the EHR acceptance were assessed in accordance with the TAM, providing an overall good model fit. Future research should attempt to add other constructs to the TAM in order to fully identify all determinants of physician acceptance of EHR in the complex environment of different health systems.

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