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Mosquitoes transmit viruses that affect public health in tropical regions. Identifying factors that influence their fitness can help control mosquito-borne diseases. We investigated the impacts of predation risk effects, from a fish predator, and food availability on the oviposition behavior of Aedes aegypti. We hypothesize that predation risk and food availability interactively affect Ae. aegypti oviposition. Gravid Ae. aegypti females were offered oviposition sites with all possible combinations of predation risk (with vs. without predator cues) and food availability (low vs. high). We found a significant interaction between predation risk and food availability. The magnitude of oviposition and the probability of egg laying in high food availability treatments exceeded the values of low food availability treatments, but only in treatments without predation risk. Predation risk critically modulated the effects of food availability on the oviposition of Ae. aegypti. This study demonstrates the interplay between predation risk and food availability in controlling mosquito-borne diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates various opportunities and risks. Our study explores the trade-off of AI technology, including existential risks. We develop a theory and a Bayesian simulation model in order to explore what is at stake. The study reveals four tangible outcomes: (i) regulating existential risks has a boundary solution of either prohibiting the technology or allowing a laissez-faire regulation. (ii) the degree of 'normal' risks follows a trade-off and is dependent on AI-intensity. (iii) we estimate the probability of 'normal' risks to be between 0.002% to 0.006% over a century. (iv) regulating AI requires a balanced and international approach due to the dynamic risks and its global nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant biomass allocation is mainly affected by the environment where each individual grows. In this sense, through the rapid global expansion of impermeable areas, urbanization has strong, albeit poorly understood, consequences on the biomass allocation of plants found in this environment. Nevertheless, the comprehension of biomass allocation processes in urban shrubs remains unclear, because most studies of urban ecology focus on tree species. This is an important gap of knowledge because a great part of urban vegetation is composed of shrubs and their association with trees have positive impacts in urban ecosystem services. In this study, we explored the ecological and potential selective pressure effects of an urbanization gradient on the biomass allocation patterns of aboveground organs of Turnera subulata, a widely distributed tropical shrub. We have demonstrated that, for certain reproductive organs, biomass allocation decreases in locations with higher urbanization. Unlike expected, the biomass of vegetative organs was not affected by urbanization, and we did not observe any effect of urbanization intensity on the variance in biomass allocation to vegetative and reproductive organs. We did not record urbanization-mediated trade-offs in biomass allocation for reproductive and vegetative organs. Instead, the biomass of these structures showed a positive relationship. Our data suggest that urbanization does not result in radical changes in biomass allocation of T. subulata, and neither in the variation of these traits. They indicate that the ability of T. subulata to thrive in urban environments may be associated with life history and morphological mechanisms. Our findings contribute to the understanding of shrub plant responses to urbanization and highlight urbanization as a potential factor in resource allocation differences for different structures and functions in plants living in these environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecological farming is widely considered to reconcile improved working and living conditions of farmers while promoting social, economic, and ecological sustainability. However, most existing research primarily focuses on relatively narrow trade-offs between workload, economic and ecological outcomes at farm level and overlooks the critical role of contextual factors. This article conducts a critical literature review on the complex nature of agroecological farm work and proposes the holistic concept of sustainable farm work (SFW) in agroecology together with a heuristic evaluation framework. The latter was applied to ten case studies to test its relevance, affirming positive outcomes of agroecology on SFW, such as improved food sovereignty, biodiversity conservation, and social inclusiveness, but also showing trade-offs, including increased workload and potential yield reductions. Further, results show that contextual factors, such as policy support, market regulation, and access to resources, heavily influence the impact of agroecological practices on SFW. This article strongly argues for the importance of a holistic understanding of SFW and its contextualization within multiple socio-ecological system levels. The proposed framework establishes clear relationships between agroecology and SFW. An explicit recognition of these multidimensional relationships is essential for maximizing positive outcomes of agroecology in different contexts and fostering SFW. On a theoretical level, this research concludes that, from a holistic perspective, work is an entry point to studying the potential of agroecology to drive a sustainable agroecological transition in economic, social, and ecological terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wire-electrical discharge machining (wire-EDM) is increasingly recommended for the machining of complex-shaped components with high surface finish and geometrical accuracy, specifically for difficult-to-machine advanced materials like Al-matrix composite (Al-MCs). The related research is primarily restricted to ex-situ Al-MCs, although in-situ ordered intermetallics reinforced Al-MCs are receiving growing attention due to their superior comprehensive mechanical properties. The present work deals with an Al-2Mg/20 vol.% in-situ Al3Fe composite manufactured by the reactive stir-casting method and focuses on its machining by wire-EDM via experimental and computational approaches. Experiments have been conducted following the response surface method (RSM) considering four process variables, namely, pulse-on time (TON), servo voltage (SV), peak current (IP) and wire feed rate (WFR). The integrity of the machined surfaces has been characterized by evaluating the change in surface chemistry (CSC) and surface roughness (SR), while the material removal rate (MRR) has been determined as the machining performance index. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and RSM-based mathematical models reveal that TON is the most influencing parameter, and it raises MRR and SR but reduces CSC considerably. The optimization of machining conditions has been performed by metaheuristic approaches, namely, Teaching and Learning-based optimization (TLBO) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) apart from multi-objective RSM (MORSM) based on the trade-off analysis. The performances of TLBO and ABC techniques are found to be identical and provide much greater MRR at the cost of diminished surface integrity, i.e., higher SR and CSC, when compared with the MORSM technique. The robustness of the developed models has been validated by confirmatory experiments with a calculated overall error of ≤ ± 8%. Finally, the surface integrity aspects are reaffirmed and correlated with input variables through detailed characterizations of the machining surfaces by FESEM-EDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproductive allocation and cost play a crucial role in the survival of organisms, but research on these traits in bryophytes has been limited and inconsistent. To address this, we conducted a literature review focusing on bryophyte studies. Our goal was to clarify inconsistencies and explore reproductive allocation and cost concepts, as well as current trends in bryophyte reproduction. We examined different approaches and highlighted advantages and limitations. We emphasized five key topics: the importance of understanding reproductive allocation and reproductive cost in bryophytes; the significance of bryophytes as model organisms; historical research; terminological and methodological inconsistencies; sexual dimorphism and reproductive allocation; and measurement methods. Furthermore, we provided insights into future perspectives. Based on our findings, we advocate for standardized quantification of reproductive allocation. Standardization would enhance comparability and synthesis of results, ultimately advancing our understanding of reproductive allocation and cost of reproduction in bryophytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fog computing has emerged as a decentralized computing paradigm that extends cloud services to the network edge, enabling faster data processing and real-time applications. The increasing popularity of fog computing has led to the emergence of a potential market involving users and providers of fog resources. However, both parties are driven by self-interest and seek to maximize their utility, giving rise to multiple conflicts extending beyond mere price considerations. Negotiations can play a crucial role in resolving conflicts and establishing mutually beneficial service level agreements. Moreover, in the heterogeneous fog environment, quality of service attributes, such as throughput, delay, trust, power dissipation, etc., vary significantly among different user-fog associations. These attributes, although non-negotiable, hold great importance for entities and directly influence partner selection. Entities may exhibit a preference for one another based on these non-negotiable attributes. To the best of our knowledge, no existing literature specifically addresses the issue of associating with a preferred trading partner at a negotiated value for multiple issues in the fog environment. This research aims to address this gap and provide insights into this unexplored area. This work presents a novel Preference-based Muti-Issue Negotiation Algorithm, PMINA, for many to many, bilateral and concurrent negotiations in the fog environment. The results confirm the significance of PMINA, demonstrating a substantial enhancement in user and fog utilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main concerns about fairness in machine learning (ML) is that, in order to achieve it, one may have to trade off some accuracy. To overcome this issue, Hardt et al. (Adv Neural Inf Process Syst 29, 2016) proposed the notion of equality of opportunity (EO), which is compatible with maximal accuracy when the target label is deterministic with respect to the input features. In the probabilistic case, however, the issue is more complicated: It has been shown that under differential privacy constraints, there are data sources for which EO can only be achieved at the total detriment of accuracy, in the sense that a classifier that satisfies EO cannot be more accurate than a trivial (i.e., constant) classifier. In this paper, we strengthen this result by removing the privacy constraint. Namely, we show that for certain data sources, the most accurate classifier that satisfies EO is a trivial classifier. Furthermore, we study the admissible trade-offs between accuracy and EO loss (opportunity difference) and characterize the conditions on the data source under which EO and non-trivial accuracy are compatible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracy and Robins (Psychological Inquiry, 15(2), 103–125, 2004) theorized that there are two facets of pride: authentic (e.g., "accomplished") and hubristic (e.g., "arrogant"). While these facets are assumed to function simultaneously over time, it remains unclear whether they differ by gender, given that pride is associated with various social behaviors (Magee Journal of Happiness Studies, 16(5), 1091–1115, 2015; Yeung & Shen Journal of Organizational Behavior, 40(6), 605–624, 2019). In this study, we recruited 118 U.S. college students (54.2% female; 49.18% Non-Hispanic White; mean age = 19.12 years) who participated in a group discussion task and reported their levels of authentic and hubristic pride at three-time points. We used the Repeated-Measures Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (RM-APIM, Kenny et al., 2006) and calculated two change scores (e.g., T2 - T1) as outcomes for the dependent variables. We also graphed the topological state of each facet of pride simultaneously (Butner et al. Psychological Methods, 20, 1–25, 2015). Our findings suggest that: (1) both facets significantly predicted their stability over time for both genders, and (2) females had a lower value of authentic pride but reached stability in authentic pride more quickly than males. These results suggest that females may be more quickly guided by what they perceive as socially expected behavior by themselves and others in authentic pride, even at lower values. In contrast, males may prioritize maintaining higher levels of authentic pride over quickly responding to social cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: There is a trade-off between plant water transport safety and efficiency, which may be linked to pit ultrastructure traits. Drought-induced embolism is one of the most important causes of plant death, and there is a close relationship between the formation and spreading of embolism and xylem structure. However, many previous studies on xylem structure lack detailed observation in intervessel pits, especially pit membranes, which have important roles in water transport and embolism spreading for angiosperms. Here, we selected eight species from subtropical forests and studied their xylem structure and functional traits. The results showed that there was a trade-off between hydraulic transport safety and efficiency in eight species, which may be related to their xylem structure. The diameter of pit aperture and pit membrane, as well as the pit membrane thickness, showed significant relationships with xylem embolism resistance, indicating that the ultrastructure of intervessel pits was a good predictor for xylem safety. With detailed observation in pits ultrastructure, this study helps to elucidate the response mechanism of trees to drought and predict forest distribution and succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reproductive mode of viviparity has independently evolved in various animal taxa. It refers to the condition in which the embryos or young develop inside the female’s body during gestation, providing advantages such as protection, nutrition, and improved survival chances. However, parasites and diseases can be an evolutionary force that limit the host’s resources, leading to physiological, morphological, and behavioral changes that impose additional costs on both the pregnant female and her offspring. This review integrates the primary literature published between 1980 and 2021 on the parasitism of viviparous hosts. We describe aspects such as reproductive investment in females, offspring sex ratios, lactation investment in mammals, alterations in birth intervals, current reproductive investment, variations between environments, immune system activity in response to immunological challenges, and other factors that can influence the interaction between viviparous females and parasites. Maintaining pregnancy incurs costs in managing the mother’s resources and regulating the immune system’s responses to the offspring, while simultaneously maintaining an adequate defense against parasites and pathogens. Parasites can significantly influence this reproductive mode: parasitized females adjust their investment in survival and reproduction based on their life history, environmental factors, and the diversity of encountered parasites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of knowledge about life-history traits has arisen from research on viviparous fishes of the family Poeciliidae. Still, the wide variation among species in reproductive strategies provides an excellent opportunity to further explore how life-history traits covary and the causes of covariation patterns. In this study, we provide information on brood size, offspring mass at birth, and total reproductive allotment of six poeciliid species (Gambusia sexradiata, Poeciliopsis latidens, Poeciliopsis viriosa, Priapella intermedia, Pseudoxiphophorus jonesii, and Xiphophorus hellerii). Also, we searched for a trade-off between the number of offspring that females produce and the size of each individual offspring. We tested the hypothesis that this trade-off should be stronger in small females because of the space constraints in the reproductive tract that are inherent to a small body size. If this hypothesis were correct, we expected a strong negative relationship between number and size of offspring in small females and a weaker or undetectable relationship between these two life-history traits in larger females. We found evidence of such a size-dependent trade-off in only one species. Small females of Po. latidens that produced relatively large broods experienced the cost of a reduction in the average size of each offspring. In larger females this negative relationship was weaker. Unexpectedly, we found no evidence of this trade-off in the other five poeciliid species and, in contrast, in one species (Priapella intermedia) females that produced numerous embryos were also capable of producing relatively large embryos. We discuss potential explanations for the different patterns of covariation (or lack of covariation) between number and size of offspring that we detected in these viviparous species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is an important factor affecting ecosystem services (ESs) and their trade-offs. However, little is known about the responses of ES trade-offs to urbanization at different scales. Here, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model was used to evaluate water yield (WY), water purification (WP), carbon storage (CS), and habitat quality (HQ) in Erhai Lake Basin using earth observation data, and the percentage of urban land (PUL), population density (POP), gross domestic product (GDP), and night light index (NLI) were used as urbanization indicators. We quantified the ES trade-offs using the root mean square error and analyzed spatiotemporal changes in urbanization indicators, ESs, and their trade-offs. Finally, we characterized the relationship between urbanization and ES trade-offs using correlation analysis and curve regression at the grid and town scales. From 2000 to 2020, values of PUL/GDP/NLI/POP were high in the south and low in the north; specifically, they were 15, 8, 2, and 0.42 times higher in the south than in the north, respectively. The urban expansion area in the Erhai Basin from 2000 to 2020 resulted in a 123.24% and 77.03% increase in WY and WP, respectively, and a 32.38% and 100% decrease in CS and HQ, respectively. The trade-offs between WY and CS and between WY and HQ increased, and other ES trade-offs decreased. Urbanization was significantly correlated with most ES trade-offs at the grid scale, but not at the town scale. There was a significant positive correlation between all urbanization indicators and the trade-off between CS and WP (p < 0.05), and the magnitude of the correlation increased with scale. The relationship between ES trade-offs and urbanization was mostly U-shaped and inverted U-shaped at the grid scale, but N-shaped and inverted N-shaped at the town scale. This study provides information that could be used for multi-scale urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high energy particles in the space environment will perturb integrated circuits, resulting in system errors or even failures, which is also known as single event effects (SEE). To ensure the normal operation of space systems, it is first necessary to detect these errors. However, detection algorithms also bring additional overhead to the system and reduce its performance. Therefore, we aim to find a trade-off between reliability and performance. To this end, we propose a quantitative evaluation model for detection methods that evaluates the reliability gain of different detection methods under the same overhead. Our method allocates the optimal detection method to the corresponding code segment based on the quantitative results, thereby achieving a trade-off between reliability and performance. Experimental results show that the average energy efficiency of our trade-off method is 91.34%, which is 21.49% higher than the other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural logistics faces a dilemma between development and high carbon emissions in China. We assess the tension between rural logistics development and carbon emissions from the perspective of policy guidance by modeling a rural logistics system using Jiangsu's data. We simulate the development trend of Jiangsu rural logistics under carbon abatement policies from 2021–2030, with a focus on promoting its development while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions at a minimal cost. The findings show that rural logistics will move towards high carbon emissions without a carbon abatement policy, while the huge tax pressure of carbon reduction policies reduces the profitability of rural logistics, leading to a trade-off between development and decarbonization. From the perspective of implementation timing and manner of carbon abatement policies implementation, we propose a pathway for securing the profitability of rural logistics and resolving the trade-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative Constraint Networks (QCN s) comprise a Symbolic AI framework for representing and reasoning about spatial and temporal information via the use of natural disjunctive qualitative relations, e.g., a constraint can be of the form "Task A is scheduled after or during Task C". In qualitative constraint-based reasoning, the state-of-the-art approach to tackle a given QCN consists in employing a backtracking algorithm, where the branching decisions during search and the refinement of the QCN are governed by certain heuristics that have been proposed in the literature. Although there has been plenty of research on how these heuristics compare and behave in terms of checking the satisfiability of a QCN fast, to the best of our knowledge there has not been any study on how they compare and behave in terms of obtaining a tractable refinement of a QCN that is also robust. In brief, a robust refinement of a QCN can be primarily seen as one that retains as many qualitative solutions as possible, e.g., the configuration "Task A is scheduled after or during Task C" is more robust than "Task A is scheduled after Task C". Here, we make such a preliminary comparison and evaluation with respect to prominent heuristics in the literature, and reveal that there exists a trade-off between fast and robust solving of QCN s for datasets consisting of instances of Allen's Interval Algebra and Region Connection Calculus. Furthermore, we investigate reasons for the existence of this trade-off and find that more aggressive heuristics are more efficient at the cost of producing less robust refinements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growth trajectories of young animals are intimately connected to their fitness prospects, but we have little knowledge of growth regulation mechanisms, particularly in the wild. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a central hormone in regulating resource allocation, with higher IGF-1 levels resulting in more growth. IGF-1 levels generally increase in conjunction with nutritional state, but whether IGF-1 levels are adjusted in response to current nutrient availability or to the nutrient availability integrated over a longer term is not well known. We tested for such effects by supplementary feeding the jackdaw (Corvus monedula) nestlings in experimentally reduced or enlarged broods with either water (control) or a food solution; these manipulations have long- and short-term effects on the nutritional state, respectively. Baseline plasma IGF-1 levels were higher in reduced broods. Food supplementation induced an increase in plasma IGF-1 levels measured one hour later, and this effect was significantly more substantial in nestlings in reduced broods. Changes in plasma IGF-1 levels increased with increased retention of the supplementary food, which was higher in reduced broods, explaining the stronger IGF-1 response. Thus, IGF-1 levels respond to short-term variations in the nutritional state, but this effect is amplified by longer-term variations in the nutritional state. We discuss our findings using a graphical model that integrates the results of the two treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carnivorous plants are different from other photosynthesizing plants because these plants have evolved to develop different mechanisms to capture animal prey for nutrition and survival. It is intriguing to look at some of the different trap mechanisms, the molecular mechanism behind the functioning of the traps, and the unusual digestion process of these carnivorous plants, which has developed as a trade-off in compensation to survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature is one of the critical abiotic factors influencing the range, richness, activity, life history and viability of insects. The persistence trend of thermal stress on biological and reproductive traits were studied for invasive fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J. E. Smith) by exposing early fourth instar larvae to thermal stress treatments (42° and 45 °C) for single and multiple times along with control (27 °C) and reared them till F2 generation. Survival of larvae was minimum in 45 °C single (88%) and multiple thermal stress (92.5%). The carry over effect of thermal stress was evident up to F2 generation for developmental attributes with prolonged developmental duration, reduced maturation success and female biased sex ratio. Reproductive parameters such as gonadosomatic index, eupyrene sperm count, fecundity and mating frequency reduced drastically as a result of thermal stress in F0 generation and the effect persisted up to F2 generation on fecundity and gonadosomatic index. The biochemical response due to thermal stress was investigated by analyzing metabolic reserves in the adult stage. The reduction in water content and accumulation of total sugar, glycogen, lipid and protein content was observed in adults of all three generations. A trade-off between reproduction and survival strategies was evident under thermal stress with the allocation of resources between them. Thus, our study provides a basic understanding on persistence of thermal stress across generations both at biological and biochemical level and offers insights into further studies on demography of fall armyworm under current and future climate change scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse agricultural land uses are a typical feature of multifunctional landscapes. The uncertain change in the drivers of global land use, such as climate, market and policy technology and demography, challenges the long-term management of agricultural diversification. As these global drivers also affect smaller scales, it is important to capture the traits of regionally specific farm activities to facilitate adaptation to change. By downscaling European shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) for agricultural and food systems, combined with representative concentration pathways (RCP) to regionally specific, alternative socioeconomic and climate scenarios, the present study explores the major impacts of the drivers of global land use on regional agriculture by simulating farm-level decisions and identifies the socio-ecological implications for promoting diverse agricultural landscapes in 2050. A hilly orchard region in northern Switzerland was chosen as a case study to represent the multifunctional nature of Swiss agriculture. Results show that the different regionalised pathways lead to contrasting impacts on orchard meadows, production levels and biodiversity. Increased financial support for ecological measures, adequate farm labour supplies for more labour-intensive farming and consumer preferences that favour local farm produce can offset the negative impacts of climate change and commodity prices and contribute to agricultural diversification and farmland biodiversity. However, these conditions also caused a significant decline in farm production levels. This study suggests that considering a broader set of land use drivers beyond direct payments, while acknowledging potential trade-offs and diverse impacts across different farm types, is required to effectively manage and sustain diversified agricultural landscapes in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lures and other adaptations for prey attraction are particularly interesting from an evolutionary viewpoint because they are characterized by correlational selection, involve multicomponent signals, and likely reflect a compromise between maximizing conspicuousness to prey while avoiding drawing attention of enemies and predators. Therefore, investigating the evolution of lure and prey-attraction adaptations can help us understand a larger set of traits governing interactions among organisms. We review the literature focusing on spiders (Araneae), which is the most diverse animal group using prey attraction and show that the evolution of prey-attraction strategies must be driven by a trade-off between foraging and predator avoidance. This is because increasing detectability by potential prey often also results in increased detectability by predators higher in the food chain. Thus increasing prey attraction must come at a cost of increased risk of predation. Given this trade-off, we should expect lures and other prey-attraction traits to remain suboptimal despite a potential to reach an optimal level of attractiveness. We argue that the presence of this trade-off and the multivariate nature of prey-attraction traits are two important mechanisms that might maintain the diversity of prey-attraction strategies within and between species. Overall, we aim to stimulate research on this topic and progress in our general understanding of the diversity of predator and prey interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: The leaf economic spectrum (LES) is related to dry mass and nutrient investments towards photosynthetic processes and leaf structures, and to the duration of returns on those investments (leaf lifespan, LL). Phosphorus (P) is a key limiting nutrient for plant growth, yet it is unclear how the allocation of leaf P among different functions is coordinated with the LES. We addressed this question among 12 evergreen woody species co-occurring on P-impoverished soils in south-eastern Australia. Methods: Leaf 'economic' traits, including LL, leaf mass per area (LMA), light-saturated net photosynthetic rate per mass (Amass), dark respiration rate, P concentration ([Ptotal]), nitrogen concentration, and P resorption, were measured for three pioneer and nine non-pioneer species. Leaf P was separated into five functional fractions: orthophosphate P (Pi), metabolite P (PM), nucleic acid P (PN), lipid P (PL), and residual P (PR; phosphorylated proteins and unidentified compounds that contain P). Results: LL was negatively correlated with Amass and positively correlated with LMA, representing the LES. Pioneers occurred towards the short-LL end of the spectrum and exhibited higher [Ptotal] than non-pioneer species, primarily associated with higher concentrations of Pi, PN and PL. There were no significant correlations between leaf P fractions and LL or LMA, while Amass was positively correlated with the concentration of PR. Conclusions: Allocation of leaf P to different fractions varied substantially among species. This variation was partially associated with the LES, which may provide a mechanism underlying co-occurrence of species with different ecological strategies under P limitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant strategies against herbivores are classically divided into chemical, physical, biotic defences. However, little is known about the relative importance of each type of plant defence, especially in the same species. Using the myrmecophyte Triplaris americana (both with and without ants), and the congeneric non-myrmecophyte T. gardneriana, we tested whether ant defence is more effective than other defences of naturally ant-free myrmecophytes and the non-myrmecophyte congeneric species, all spatially co-occurring. In addition, we investigated how plant traits vary among plant groups, and how these traits modulate herbivory. We sampled data on leaf area loss and plant traits from these tree groups in the Brazilian Pantanal floodplain, and found that herbivory is sixfold lower in plants with ants than in ant-free plants, supporting a major role of biotic defences against herbivory. Whereas ant-free plants had more physical defences (sclerophylly and trichomes), they had little effect on herbivory—only sclerophylly modulated herbivory, but with opposite effects depending on ants' presence and species identity. Despite little variation in the chemicals among plant groups, tannin concentrations and δ13C signatures negatively affected herbivory in T. americana plants with ants and in T. gardneriana, respectively. We showed that ant defence in myrmecophytic systems is the most effective against herbivory, as the studied plants could not fully compensate the lack of this biotic defence. We highlight the importance of positive insect-plant interactions in limiting herbivory, and therefore potentially plant fitness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) are among the most employed approaches for aggregating performances in Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM). TOPSIS and SAW are two MCDM methods based on the value function approach and are often used in combination with other MCDM methods in order to produce rankings of alternatives. In this paper, first, we analyse some common features of these two MCDM methods with a specific reference to the additive properties of the value function and to the sensitivity of the value function to trade-off weights. Based on such methodological insights, an experimental comparison of the results provided by these two aggregation methods across a computational test is performed. Specifically, similarities in rankings of alternatives produced by TOPSIS and SAW are evaluated under three different Minkowski distances (namely, the Euclidean, Manhattan and Tchebichev ones). Similarities are measured trough a set of statistical indices. Results show that TOPSIS, when used in combination with a Manhattan distance, produces rankings which are extremely similar to the ones resulting from SAW. Similarities are also Experimental results confirm that rankings produced by TOPSIS methods are closer to SAW ones when similar formal properties are satisfied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microalgae produce a wide range of biomolecules with commercial applications and thus maximizing algal productivity in these systems is of central importance. Although, photosynthesis requires light, microalgae have limited productivity when their photosystem is exposed to excessive light irradiance and become photoinhibited. Here, we perform adaptative laboratory evolution to improve the light harvesting efficiency of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under high irradiance. In doing so, we also test whether manipulating the genetic variation of the lineages under selection, through UV mutagenesis, or creating mixed strains with a single, or five generations of recombination prior to selection, increases the evolutionary response. Our results indicate that selection under high light increases total pigment production and the ratios of carotenoids to chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-a to chlorophyll-b. These changes likely increase photoprotection and make the photosystem more efficient by reducing the size of light-harvesting antennae. Measurements of the maximum potential quantum efficiency of Photosystem II suggest that high light intensity selected lines were more stressed under normal light conditions indicative of a trade-off between light environments. Contrary to expectations, we found that different strains responded equally to selection, irrespective of whether they were single or mixed strains or pre-treated with UV radiation. Our study provides further evidence of the utility of adaptative laboratory evolution as a tool for enhancing biomass production and high-light resistance in C. reinhardtii and suggests that significant evolutionary responses can be achieved without the need for mixing or inducing mutations through UV radiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services (ESs), but the trade-off and synergy among them were uncertain. Biotic and abiotic variables regulate forest ecosystem service multifunctionality (EMF); however, quantifying the relative contribution of them to EMF in natural forests at large scale was still limited. We examined the trade-off in ecosystem services and the drivers of EMF of natural temperate forests in northeast China. Six facets of ESs were derived based on 2227 national forest inventory sample plots, that is, water conservation, soil conservation, stand productivity, tree species diversity, carbon storage and soil fertility maintenance. Structural equation model was applied to quantify the driving forces of EMF including mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), total nitrogen (TN), soil pH (pH), stand age (Age), additive stand density index (aSDI), stand structural diversity (SSD) and tree species richness (SR). Our results indicated that the RMSD (root mean square deviation) values of the 15 ES pairs ranged from 0.13 to 0.25, and the trade-offs between biodiversity and other five ESs were high, with RMSD values greater than 0.2. We provided clear evidence that stand density was the most important driver of EMF, which affected the EMF indirectly through tree size diversity and species richness. Understanding the contribution of these factors to EMF can help to design sustainable forest management practices in northeast China aiming to foster and preserve multifunctionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fight or flight decision (i.e., engage in or evade from an interaction) is one of the most important for animals, occurring in many different ecological contexts and dictating the occurrence of agonistic encounters that could lead to injuries or even death. The southern lapwing Vanellus chilensis is one of the most conspicuous bird species from South America, living in the natural grasslands but frequently found in rural and urban area. The species is known by its typical vocalization and its patterns of aggression and territoriality, considered exaggerated, creating a cultural prejudice towards the species. To better understand the agonistic interaction process in the species, we used general linear models to verify the influence of individual characteristics, environmental characteristics, and opponent features on five different response variables related to the interactions: the time of alert behavior display, probability to attack and evade, total duration of the interaction, and the Behavioral Diversity Index (BDI) of each interaction. Despite the models showing that for each response variables the predictors had different importance and weights, it was possible to note that individual features like age, breeding status, and month impact directly the probability to evade or attack, while the opponent species and distance better explained the other variables related to the interaction. The results also showed that the southern lapwings increase the intensity of responses and sensibility to intruder during the breeding season, displaying a trade-off between self-preservation and the protection of the offspring that is present in other bird species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen allocated to the photosynthetic apparatus and its partitioning into different photosynthetic components is crucial for understanding plant carbon gain and plant productivity. It is known that photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning are controlled by both environmental and vegetation factors and have versatile and dynamic responses. However, such responses are greatly simplified in most current gas exchange models, in which only a prescribed relationship is commonly applied to describe the effect of nitrogen on photosynthesis and with limited model performance. While within-canopy variation at a specific time in leaf photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning has been studied previously, far less attention has been paid to the seasonal dynamics of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning, which is especially critical to deciduous forests. In this study, we integrated long-term field observations in deciduous forests in Japan to determine seasonal patterns of photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning (rubisco, electron transport, and light capture) and to examine how photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning varied seasonally in deciduous forest canopies growing at different altitudes. The results demonstrated that there were remarkable seasonal variations in both photosynthetic nitrogen content and partitioning in deciduous forests along the altitudinal gradient. Moreover, photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency was well explained by nitrogen partitioning rather than total leaf nitrogen. These results suggest that seasonal patterns of nitrogen partitioning should be integrated into ecosystem models to accurately project emergent properties of ecosystem productivity on local, regional, and global scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deploying real-time, accurate and efficient object detection algorithms on embedded devices is the basis for robots to perceive the environment. However, it remains a huge challenge to achieve trade-off between detection speed and accuracy on embedded devices due to the limited computational resources. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a fusion mode with “interaction + integration” on the basis of enriching the limited features, and designs a tradeoff object detection method for embedded devices called shuffle-octave-yolo. First, channel shuffle is integrated into the feature extraction module of yolov4-tiny to extract richer features within a limited computation budget. Then, octave convolution (OctConv) that replaced average-pooling with max pooling is employed as the junction of features from the adjacent scales to construct a feature pyramid network based on OctConv (Oct-FPN). Combined with 1 × 1 pointwise convolution, a feature fusion module with two stages is built in Oct-FPN to conduct efficient feature fusion including interaction and integration. An adjustable fusion ratio is introduced to search the best tradeoff point. Finally, a three-scale prediction structure is adopted to improve the detection performance of small objects. Experimental results on the PASCAL VOC dataset show that shuffle-octave-yolo achieves a mAP (mean average precision) of 65.97% with 30.9 fps (frames per second) on Nvidia Jetson TX2 when fusion ratio is 3:7. It improves accuracy by 11.70% compared to the lightweight network on average, and 5.8 × speedup compared to the original algorithm. The model achieves outstanding trade-off between speed and accuracy on embedded devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade-off between military expenditure and public health spending has remained an unsettled empirical issue. This paper investigates whether military expenditure has crowded out public health spending in 116 countries (including a subsample of 87 non-OECD countries) over the period 2000–2017. Through our system generalized methods of moments (GMM) estimations, we find that military expenditure, whether it is measured on a per-capita basis or as a proportion of total government expenditure, has a positive impact on the demand for health care. Nonetheless, we find a significant crowding-out effect of military expenditure on domestic government health spending by taking into account government fiscal capacity. The evidence we present supports the long-standing view that military expenditure has a particular ability to compete government financial resources away from publicly funded health spending. By interacting the military expenditure variable with income per capita, we find that an increase in income per capita has neutralized the crowding-out effect of military expenditure on domestic government health spending – less well-off countries stand to suffer most, and wealthy ones stand to suffer least, from the crowding-out effect. The crowding-out effect is statistically more specific to middle- and low-income countries in our samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrestrial ecosystem services have experienced evident decline in the past decades. Trade-offs and synergies in ecosystem services have been widely studied to understand the disturbance of human activities on ecosystems. However, the method for ecosystem services assessment remains incomplete, and a few studies of the trade-off analysis of ecosystem services have been conducted at the national scale. In this study, we conducted trade-off analysis of China's ecosystem services—including supplying, regulating, supporting, and cultural services—using a newly revised benefit transfer method and the bivariate Moran's I method during 2000–2015. We found an overall increasing tendency in ecosystem services value when comparing to the findings from previous studies. Synergy was the dominant relationship among the ecosystem services in China, but it varied spatially. The findings in this study have important implications for ecosystem services management in China and for ecosystem services value assessment in other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interspecific competition determines the invasive capability of alien plants. Phytolacca americana, one of the most destructive invasive plants in China, was first discovered and recorded in China in 1935. Since its arrival, the rapid expansion of the species has driven out a native congener, Phytolacca acinosa. In this study, we assessed the competitive interaction of the invasive P. americana the native P. acinosa in a pot experiment at Yunnan University. Our results indicate that P. americana severely inhibits the growth and reproduction of P. acinosa. Furthermore, P. americana demonstrated a superior resistance against both insect predation and bacterial infection. We suggest that this improved tolerance against herbivory and potentional pathogen damage may be a cornerstone to the invasive success of Phytolacca americana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While experimental studies have demonstrated within-population variation in host tolerance to parasitism, theoretical studies rarely predict for polymorphism to arise. However, most theoretical models do not consider the crucial distinction between tolerance to the effects of infection-induced deaths (mortality tolerance) and tolerance to the parasite-induced reduction in the reproduction of infected hosts (sterility tolerance). While some studies have examined trade-offs between host tolerance and resistance mechanisms, none has considered a correlation within different tolerance mechanisms. We assume that sterility tolerance and mortality tolerance are directly traded-off in a host population subjected to a pathogen and use adaptive dynamics to study their evolutionary behaviour. We find that such a trade-off between the two tolerance strategies can drive the host population to branch into dimorphic strains, leading to coexistence of strains with sterile hosts that have low mortality and fully fertile with high mortality rates. Further, we find that a wider range of trade-off shapes allows branching at intermediate- or high-infected population size. Our other significant finding is that sterility tolerance is maximised (and mortality tolerance minimised) at an intermediate disease-induced mortality rate. Additionally, evolution entirely reverses the disease prevalence pattern corresponding to the recovery rate, compared to when no strategies evolve. We provide novel predictions on the evolutionary behaviour of two tolerance strategies concerning such a trade-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life-history traits, such as reproductive allocation, sexual expression, sex ratio, and reproductive success, are central aspects of a species' ecology and evolution. For example, bias in male and female sex expression may play a large role in determining the viability of populations in the face of environmental pressures, such as population fragmentation, climate change and habitat occupancy. Thus, in this study, we investigated reproductive traits in 10 meta-populations of Fissidens flaccidus Mitt. From each meta-population, 30 patches were randomly selected, and 1 cm2 samples were collected form each patch. A total of 20,173 ramets were analyzed and classified into male, non-sporophytic female, sporophytic female, and non-sex expressing. In addition, population density in each patch was quantified. Our results showed that relative reproductive allocation in perigonia and sporophytes is greater than perichaetia. Trade-off between sexual relative reproductive allocation and asexual gemma production was observed, suggesting an important role of female ramets in asexual reproduction. The number of male ramets does not influence the reproductive success observed in each patch, and ramet density may induce male sex expression. Thus, we concluded that reproductive allocation in male function is efficient, since fewer male ramets can assure a considerable reproductive success. Furthermore, our results suggest that there may be a habitat preference between the sexes, since male ramets are found in patches with high density and mostly below female ramets, suggesting an avoidance of direct sunlight by male ramets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We aimed to quantify patients' benefit-risk preferences for attributes associated with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-targeted breast cancer treatments and estimate minimum acceptable benefits (MABs), denominated in additional months of progression-free survival (PFS), for given treatment-related adverse events (AEs). Methods: We conducted an online discrete-choice experiment (DCE) among patients with self-reported advanced/metastatic breast cancer in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan (N = 302). In a series of nine DCE questions, respondents chose between two hypothetical treatment profiles created by an experimental design. Profiles were defined by six attributes with varying levels: PFS, nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, liver function problems, risk of heart failure, and risk of serious lung damage and infections. Data were analyzed using an error component random-parameters logit model. Results: Among the attributes, patients placed the most importance on a change in PFS from 5 to 26 months; change from no diarrhea to severe diarrhea was the least important. Avoiding a 15% risk of heart failure had the largest MAB (5.8 additional months of PFS), followed by avoiding a 15% risk of serious lung damage and infections (4.6 months), possible severe liver function problems (4.2 months), severe nausea/vomiting (3.7 months), and severe diarrhea (2.3 months) compared with having none of the AEs. The relative importance of 21 additional months of PFS (increasing from 5 to 26 months) increased for women with HER2-negative disease and those with children. Conclusions: Patients valued PFS gain higher than the potential risk of AEs when deciding between hypothetical breast cancer treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elastic full waveform inversion (EFWI) has increasingly been applied in seismic exploration as computer performance improves. EFWI significantly improves calculation efficiency, but requires very large computer storage space and suffers inter-parameter trade-off and local minima problems. Preconditioning the gradients based on elastic wave mode decomposition can effectively mitigate inter-parameter trade-offs, but the decomposition-based scheme may further increase the memory usage, which limits EFWI application. The equivalent staggered grid (ESG) scheme in acoustic medium requires less memory usage and generates results numerically equivalent to those using the standard staggered grid (SSG) scheme. In this paper, we extend the ESG scheme to second-order elastic wave equations in terms of velocity, producing results numerically equivalent to the SSG ones based on first-order velocity–stress wave equations while reducing memory usage by 45% compared with the SSG scheme. We then apply the ESG scheme to EFWI and derive the formula of the preconditioned gradient of the S-wave velocity. Finally, three numerical examples demonstrate that applying the ESG scheme to decomposition-based EFWI can significantly reduce computer memory usage and mitigate the trade-offs between the P- and S-wave velocities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory-guided neural network (TgNN) is a kind of method which improves the effectiveness and efficiency of neural network architectures by incorporating scientific knowledge or physical information. Despite its great success, the theory-guided (deep) neural network possesses certain limits when maintaining a tradeoff between training data and domain knowledge during the training process. In this paper, the Lagrangian dual-based TgNN (TgNN-LD) is proposed to improve the effectiveness of the training process. We convert the original loss function into a constrained form with several items, in which partial differential equations (PDEs), engineering controls (ECs), and expert knowledge (EK) are regarded as constraints, with one Lagrangian variable per constraint. These Lagrangian variables are incorporated to achieve an equitable trade-off between observation data and corresponding constraints, to improve prediction accuracy and training efficiency. To investigate the performance of the proposed method, the original TgNN model with a set of optimized weight values adjusted by ad-hoc procedures is compared on a subsurface flow problem, with their L2 error, R square (R2), and computational time being analyzed. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the Lagrangian dual-based TgNN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key message: A ratio of storage to growth of at least 8.4 and a balanced storage-growth relationship might be essential for subalpine larch trees to persist at the treeline. Cold-adapted trees display acclimation in trade-off of carbon storage and growth under cold stress at their upper elevational range limits. However, two prevailing hypotheses (growth/sink limitation hypothesis and carbon/source limitation hypothesis) based on carbon supply-demand balance are highly controversial and cannot yet provide a broad explanation for the formation of alpine treeline. Here, to probe into the physiological mechanism of treeline formation from carbon allocation, we examined the spatial dynamics of whole-tree mobile carbon pools and structural growth of the deciduous treeline tree species Larix chinensis along an elevational gradient in the Qinling Mountains of north-central China. Our results showed that the whole-tree non-structural carbohydrates stock increased significantly while the structural growth decreased with the increase in elevation. The ratio of carbon storage to structural growth increased with the increase in elevation, showing that it was highest at a ratio of 8.4 at the treeline site at the end of growing season. Such variations of storage-growth ratio might be attributable to the trade-off of carbon allocation and tree survival, which changed along elevation due to different intensity of cold stress. Thus, we concluded that a ratio of storage to growth of at least 8.4 might be essential for subalpine larch trees to persist at their low-temperature edge. Therefore, a sufficient carbon storage-growth ratio and a balanced storage-growth relationship might be required for subalpine larch trees to survive and develop in the altitudinal treeline ecotone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hadoop has emerged as a popular choice for processing Big data. Its cluster is used to process large scale jobs. The performance of a cluster is largely dependent upon the different kind of scheduling policies employed for job processing. However, a single type of scheduling policy may not be suitable for different kind of jobs. Inefficient performance of a cluster is an apparent outcome of inappropriate scheduling policies. These policies are either too complex or they are too elementary to understand the diverse jobs and their needs. Most of them follow a fixed pattern, which cannot be considered as a common solution for different jobs. The effect of such a non-fitting mechanism is lower resource utilization and poor cluster performance. In this paper, a pluggable scheduling mechanism is proposed for efficient and adaptive processing of the jobs. It utilizes the Matching Market concept for the allocation and further adaptively accommodates the diverse needs of the multiple jobs by understanding the varying requirements of the tasks. The experimental results reveal an enhanced resource utilization and improved cluster performance with an overall reduction in makespan. In certain instances, we have seen resource utilization improved up to 80% and performance improvement up to 60% with the proposed technique. Cluster efficiency is increased up of 31%. The evaluation and comparisons were conducted on various scheduling policies using different benchmarks of Hadoop with the same data and identical configurations. The proposed system has shown significant improvement in cluster efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plants face an array of insect herbivores and have evolved complex defense approaches against various insect feeding strategies. However, little is known about how plants respond to successive attacks by herbivores with different feeding modes and coordinate their diverse defense mechanisms. In this study, we unveil that inducible jasmonic acid (JA) accumulation in response to leaf-chewing insects augments plant resistance and repellence to sequential leaf-chewing insect (caterpillar) and phloem-feeding insect (whitefly) infestations. Conversely, constitutive and whitefly inducible salicylic acid (SA) accumulation exclusively bolsters defense against later-stage whitefly invasion. Through assessments of herbivore performance and preferences on wild-type, JA-deficient, and SA-deficient plants, we show that JA/SA levels regulate plant resistance to both initial and sequential herbivores. Notably, JA or SA accumulation due to caterpillar or whitefly attacks does not substantially affect constitutive levels of the other compound, despite their antagonistic crosstalk. Furthermore, exogenous JA application in tobacco elicits efficient defense against successive caterpillar and whitefly assaults, surpassing SA's efficacy, albeit with associated growth penalties. Our discoveries demonstrate that plants can tailor their defense strategies against initial and sequential insects with different feeding modes. This customized defense is facilitated by JA/SA responses and their intricate cross-talk while taking account of the growth-defense trade-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underwater imaging environment is very different from land, and some common land image enhancement methods are often not applicable to the underwater environment. This paper proposes a two-step underwater image enhancement method. White balance is a commonly used color correction method. In underwater environments, the traditional white balance method has certain limitations and results in severe color bias. This is caused by the faster attenuation of red light in underwater environments. We develop a new white balance method based on the assumption of the gray world method. A red correction module is embedded in the method, which is more suitable for underwater environments. For contrast correction, we design an illuminance correction method based on the Retinex model. The method significantly reduces the computational burden compared to traditional methods, while enhancing the brightness and contrast of the images. In addition, most of the current underwater image enhancement methods deal with color and contrast issues separately. However, these two factors influence each other, and processing them separately may lead to suboptimal results. Therefore, we investigate the relationship between color and contrast and propose a trade-off method. Our method integrates color and contrast within a histogram framework, achieving a balanced enhancement of both aspects. To avoid chance, we utilized four datasets, each containing 800 randomly selected images for metric testing. On the five non-referential metrics, three firsts and two seconds were ranked. Our method ranked second on two referenced metrics. Superior results were also achieved in runtime comparisons. Finally, we further demonstrate the superiority of our method through detailed demonstrations and ablation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally tested whether the presence of a free benthic predator (Odonata naiads) alters the displacement time, the position occupied in the water column, and the proportion of food consumed by benthic and nektonic tadpoles. The presence of predators did not influence the displacement time or the proportion of food consumed by any of the two species. In the presence of predators, benthic tadpoles avoided the benthic microhabitat, increasing their time in the middle of the water column. This behavior was unexpected since the previous studies indicate that the morphology of benthic tadpoles restricts them to the bottom of water bodies. We, thus, hypothesize that such a drastic behavior change was a consequence of the real risk of predation to which the tadpoles were exposed. Our results are in accordance with the threat-sensitivity hypothesis, in which prey behave flexibly when exposed to different degrees of predation threats. Nektonic tadpoles, however, slightly increased their permanence in the water column in the presence of the same benthic predators. Therefore, we provide support for the hypothesis that predators induce greater behavioral changes in prey that exhibit patterns of microhabitat use similar to theirs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Bacteria reorganize their physiology upon entry to stationary phase. What part of this reorganization improves starvation survival is a difficult question because the change in physiology includes a global reorganization of the proteome, envelope, and metabolism of the cell. In this work, we used several trade‐offs between fast growth and long survival to statistically score over 2,000 Escherichia coli proteins for their global correlation with death rate. The combined ranking allowed us to narrow down the set of proteins that positively correlate with survival and validate the causal role of a subset of proteins. Remarkably, we found that important survival genes are related to the cell envelope, i.e., periplasm and outer membrane, because the maintenance of envelope integrity of E. coli plays a crucial role during starvation. Our results uncover a new protective feature of the outer membrane that adds to the growing evidence that the outer membrane is not only a barrier that prevents abiotic substances from reaching the cytoplasm but also essential for bacterial proliferation and survival.

Background: To achieve climate targets, a transition to low-carbon energy production is necessary. However, conflicts between different interests, values and priorities, particularly at the community level, can constrain this transition. This paper aims to analyze lines of conflict and opportunities to build bridges between conflicting interests in the expansion of wind energy in Germany at the local level, to achieve successful implementation of wind energy projects. Results: Our analysis of four cases of local-level wind energy projects in Germany shows that limited local options for action reinforce the need for local actors to maximize the benefits of energy transition projects. In addition to the conflict over scarce space, the lines of conflict at the local level run primarily along the dimensions of costs and benefits, winners and losers. Real or perceived procedural and distributive injustices had the potential to fuel resistance to wind energy projects in the analyzed cases. However, wind energy projects were successfully implemented despite the presence of local opposition. Conclusions: The results show that, by integrating procedural and distributive justice into the project planning and implementation and offering tailored solutions, community support for expansion of renewable energy projects can be enhanced. The paper advances the concept of societal ownership ("gesellschaftliche Trägerschaft"), which suggests the willingness of members of a community to tolerate decisions even when some conflicts related to the decision remain unresolved. Societal ownership is presented as an alternative to the concept of simple acceptance; it implies a more positive, more supportive community attitude, where members aim to address conflict as a normal aspect of decision making. Rather than sweeping alternative opinions aside, the community addresses alternative viewpoints, seeking to achieve greater procedural and distributive justice. In this way, a sense of societal ownership of a project can develop, enhancing its likelihood of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the sustainability efficiency of a supply chain network (SCN) is a complex issue due to the inherent conflict of interest among components. In these systems, there are two levels of conflict of interest: on the one hand, network players, including suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, etc., have conflicting interests. On the other hand, the three sustainability goals, namely economic, social and environmental, are not in line with each other. Improvement in one of these goals is not possible while keeping the others constant. Using hybrid models of game network data envelopment analysis (GNDEA), this study presented a new framework to measure an Iranian pharmaceutical company’s supply chain network sustainability efficiency (SCNSE). This was done considering two levels of conflict of interest simultaneously, which is the main contribution of this study. The proposed model also measures the performance of components and the entire network in all three dimensions of sustainability. It enables managers to gain a better insight into the sustainability efficiency of an SCN and its individual components. Acquiring this knowledge allows managers to identify system weaknesses and design more effective improvement plans. Future studies can develop models for appraising the sustainability efficiency of an SCN under uncertain conditions considering different players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business schools that follow an elective system allows a student to select required number of electives in a semester from a larger pool. The resulting heterogeneous elective selection combinations across students make it challenging to arrive at a quality examination timetable. An examination timetable is characterized by the day, the scheduled slot in the day and the classroom during the scheduled slot for each exam. Five quality metrics for examination timetable are developed and accordingly 0–1 linear integer programs formulated for each metric. Surrogacy as a concept is proposed through which a given problem is solved either through another objective function or through a subset of the problem or a combination of both. The resulting findings indicate the usefulness of the proposed mathematical programs and the developed solution approaches in achieving quality elective examination timetable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When herbivores feed, plants may respond by altering the quantity of edible biomass available to future feeders through mechanisms such as compensatory regrowth of edible structures or allocation of biomass to inedible reserves. Previous work showed that some forms of compensatory regrowth can drive insect outbreaks, but this work assumed regrowth occurred without any energetic cost to the plant. While this is a useful simplifying assumption for gaining preliminary insights, plants face an inherent trade-off between allocating energy to regrowth versus storage. Therefore, we cannot truly understand the role of compensatory regrowth in driving insect outbreaks without continuing on to more realistic scenarios. In this paper, we model the interaction between insect herbivores and plants that have a trade-off between compensatory regrowth and allocation to inedible reserves in response to herbivory. We found that the plant's allocation strategy, described in our model by parameters representing the strength of the overcompensatory response and the rates at which energy is stored and mobilized for growth, strongly affects whether herbivore outbreaks occur. Additional factors, such as the strength of food limitation and herbivore interference while feeding, influence the frequency of the outbreaks. Overall, we found a possible new role of overcompensation to promote herbivore fluctuations when it co-occurs with allocation to inedible reserves. We highlight the importance of considering trade-offs between tolerance mechanisms that plants use in response to herbivory by showing that new dynamics arise when different plant allocation strategies occur simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals often halt foraging in the presence of predator cues, an ecological phenomenon known as the foraging/predator avoidance tradeoff. Although some have proposed that anxiety may exist in animals exposed to predator cues, few studies have examined whether such interactions lead to anxiety-like behavior in animals other than laboratory rodents and zebrafish. In this experiment, a foraging/predator avoidance tradeoff task was modified using adult male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) and a looming visual predator stimulus to determine if (1) visual predator cues reduce appetitive behavior, (2) visual predator cues lead to predator avoidance behavior, and (3) if visual predator cues alter the abundance of transcripts in the optic tectum known to be modulated in other brain areas during anxiety. Frogs exposed to the predator stimulus did not reduce their food intake, although sweeping, a foraging behavior, was significantly reduced by the predator stimulus. Predator-exposed animals spent significantly more time stationary and entered the predator zone less compared controls. There were no statistically significant changes in relative transcript abundance of anxiety-related peptides between the groups in the optic tectum. Collectively, this tradeoff task was able to induce discrete avoidance and appetitive behaviors that are similar to anxiety-like behaviors observed in other predator avoidance models; however, the effects of visual threats on feeding and anxiety-related transcript abundance requires further study. Significance statement: Halting foraging activities to increase vigilance and engage avoidance behaviors has been proposed to play an adaptive role in survival of predator encounters in a number of animal species. Some have proposed that anxiety evolved as a state associated with the engagement of avoidance and antipredator behavior. However, few studies have examined whether such foraging/predator avoidance tradeoffs result in anxiety-like behavior in animals other than rodents. We developed a foraging/predator avoidance tradeoff task in an aquatic frog species to determine if the sight of a looming visual threat interferes with feeding and causes anxiety-like behavior in an amphibian. Our data suggest that some, but not other (feeding, for example), behavioral aspects of foraging/predator avoidance tradeoffs mimic anxiety-like behavior when a visual threat is present. These data contribute to a growing body of literature indicating that anxiety may be an adaptive response to predator threats in non-mammalian species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: On the staggering emergence of the Omicron variant, numerous questions arose about the evolution of virulence and transmissibility in microbes. The trade-off hypothesis has long speculated the exchange of virulence for the sake of superior transmissibility in a wide array of pathogens. While this certainly applies to the case of the Omicron variant, along with influenza virus, various reports have been allocated for an array of pathogens such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), malaria, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and tuberculosis (TB). The latter abide to another form of trade-off, the invasion–persistence trade-off. In this study, we aim to explore the molecular mechanisms and mutations of different obligate intracellular pathogens that attenuated their more morbid characters, virulence in acute infections and invasion in chronic infections. Short conclusion: Recognizing the mutations that attenuate the most morbid characters of pathogens such as virulence or persistence can help in tailoring new therapies for such pathogens. Targeting macrophage tropism of HIV by carbohydrate-binding agents, or targeting the TMPRSS2 receptors to prevent pulmonary infiltrates of COVID-19 is an example of how important is to recognize such genetic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many laboratory experiments on aquatic vertebrates that inhabit closed water or coastal areas have highlighted negative effects of fast growth on swimming performance. Nonetheless, field studies on pelagic fishes have provided evidence of survival advantages of faster-growing individuals. To reconcile this contradiction, we examined the relationship between growth rate and swimming performance as a continuous function for juveniles of chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) using 3D tracking analysis. For experiments, 20, 24, 27, and 30 days post-hatch individuals within the size range of 14.5–25.3 mm were used. We found that the growth–swimming (burst speed) relationship in chub mackerel was substantially positive and it was supported by morphological traits such as muscle area, which were also positively related with growth rate. This finding is consistent with field observations showing selective survival of fast-growing individuals of this species, reconciling the current contradiction between laboratory experiments and field observations. A dome-shaped quadratic curve described the relationship between growth rate and burst speed better than a linear or cubic function, suggesting that growth may trade-off with swimming performance, as reported in many previous studies, when it is extremely fast. These results, obtained from the rarely tested offshore species, strongly suggests the importance of experimental verification using animals that inhabit various types of habitats in understanding the principles underlying the evolution of growth–locomotor relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]