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1. Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is a fundamental feature of animal biology that reflects the baseline level of energy expenditure. There are two main strategies that can address energy demands; animals can reallocate energy from maintenance by reducing RMR to meet energy demands (compensation model) or they can increase intake rate by increasing metabolic activities (performance model). 2. Orb‐web spiders are sit‐and‐wait foragers that typically reside at the centre of their web waiting to intercept prey. Given their sedentary resource acquisition strategy, it is predicted that lower RMR is favoured to reduce self‐maintenance energetic costs and to allow greater allocation to oogenesis (i.e., egg sac development). 3. In this study, we tested temporal variation in RMR of female Argiope radon (Araneae: Araneidae) spiders in response to mating status. Then we tested the degree to which between‐individual variation in the parental RMR relates to reproductive output and spiderling early life‐history traits. 4. Despite the notable between‐individual variation, we found a temporal consistency of RMR in the female spiders at early adulthood. Mated females significantly reduced their RMR by around 35% compared to their unmated stage which supports compensation model. However, there was a significant correlation between female RMR and mass of the egg sac in these spiders which is an evidence for performance model. 5. Our findings suggest that energy management in this species is a complex phenomenon, both strategies are in effect simultaneously at within‐ and between‐individual level shaping the individuals' phenotype.

Objectives The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how habit strength in a preparatory and performance phase predicts exercise while accounting for intention. The secondary purpose was to determine the strength of potential habit antecedents (affective judgement, perceived behavioural control, consistency, and cues) in both exercise phases. Design This was a prospective study with measures collected at baseline and week 6. Methods Participants (n = 181) were a sample of adults (18–65) recruited across nine gyms and recreation centres who completed baseline and follow-up questionnaires after 6 weeks. Results Intention (β = .28, p = .00) and habit preparation (β = .20, p = .03), predicted exercise, and change of exercise with coefficients of β = .25, (p = .00) and β = .18, (p = .04), respectively, across 6 weeks but not habit performance (p>.05). Conclusions This study highlighted the distinction between the two phases of exercise and the importance of preparatory habit in predicting behaviour. Focusing on a consistent preparatory routine could be helpful in establishing an exercise habit. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? A recent meta-analysis found habit to correlate r = .43 with behaviour (Gardner, de Bruijn, & Lally, 2011). Verplanken and Melkevik (2008) propose that habit in exercise should be measured in separate components. Phillips and Gardner (2015) interpreted this as habitual instigation (thought) to exercise and execution. What does this study add? Extended pervious work and identified two distinct behavioural phases (preparation and performance) for exercise. Habit model revealed that temporal consistency was the strongest predictor in both phases of exercise. Intention and habit of preparatory behaviour predicted exercise fluctuations in gym members.

The climatic impact of the two phases (warm/cold) of ENSO phenomena on monthly temperature patterns over South Korea is examined based on the composite and harmonic analysis. The core regions, namely the north-east region and the south-west region, were identified with a high-level spatial coherence and temporal consistency, which represent the geographical extent and magnitude of the response of the ENSO forcing to the temperature patterns. For the both regions, the temperature anomalies in El Nino year are below normal for summer through fall of the ENSO year and above normal for winter through spring of the following year. The spatial coherence rates of each region are 0.95, 0.97 and the temporal consistency rates are 0.70/0.70 (cold/warm) and 0.70/0.80 (cold/warm), respectively. On the other hand, in case of the cold events, the temperature anomalies for the both regions are above normal for summer through fall of the episode year and below normal for winter through spring of the following year. The spatial coherence rates of each region are 0.98, 0.99 and the temporal consistency rates are 1.00/0.78 (warm/cold) and 0.89/0.78 (warm/cold), respectively. According to the comparative analyses for both extreme episodes in two core regions, the El Nino/La Nina–temperature relationships show reverse patterns of sign, negative–positive and positive–negative temperature anomalies, respectively. Based on the results of annual cycle analysis, Mann–Whitney U test and cross-correlation analysis, the cold–warm anomalies during the warm event years are more remarkable and significant than the warm–cold departures during the cold event years. Consequently, the climatic teleconnective pattern between the extreme phase of SO and mid-latitude temperature is identified over South Korea.

Understanding how behavioural traits co-vary within and between individuals is a major aim of behavioural ecologists working across a wide range of taxa. Here we attempted to measure five key behavioural traits (aggression, boldness, exploration, activity and sociability) in a native Australian social skink, Egernia whitii . Specifically, we documented the temporal consistency of trait structural definition, the temporal consistency of trait expression and the relationships between behavioural traits (i.e. behavioural syndromes). We found (1) that the structural consistency of some traits (boldness), but not others (aggressiveness and exploration), changed across time and according to sex (i.e. the relationship between the raw behaviours that were measured in the boldness assay was different for males and females); (2) that three of the five behavioural traits exhibited moderate-to-high adjusted repeatability while two were not repeatable; (3) covariances between behavioural traits were weak to non-existent and did not support the presence of any behavioural syndromes. These results indicate that structural consistency of traits or the behavioural ‘definition’ of an aggregate score is potentially variable over time. This may limit inference on any subsequent estimates of repeatability of behavioural traits, as well as estimates of potential syndromes. Repeatability of behavioural traits may reflect underlying ecological importance, or measurement processes, and lack of behavioural syndromes may reflect lack of selection pressure for trait covariance. Studies examining multiple behavioural traits under a measurement as well as an ecological framework are crucial to make meaningful inferences regarding the ecological and evolutionary significance of behavioural traits.

Aim To examine the usefulness of temporal measures of motor activity during psychometric assessment on two different assessment days, 1 week apart with a scope to help the early identification of hyperactivity. Methods Actigraph measures at the ankle and the waist were compared on the first and the second days of psychometric assessment in a total of 169 children (93 children in ADHD group; 76 children in Non-ADHD group) aged 3 years and 4 years. Results There was a significant interaction effect between group and time on the activity level at the waist. Although the activity level of the waist in the children with ADHD did not significantly differ between Day 1 and Day 2, the activity level of the children without ADHD declined significantly from Day 1 to 2. A total of 70% of children were correctly classified into ADHD or Non-ADHD groups based only on Day 2 waist activity data. Conclusion The temporal consistency of hyperactivity in young children with ADHD during psychometric assessment is confirmed, indicating that objective measures of motor activity at the waist over different days of psychometric assessment can provide additional information for the stability of hyperactivity.

Personality traits have been posited to function as stable influences on political attitudes and behavior. Although personality traits themselves exhibit high levels of temporal stability, it is not yet known whether the effects of these traits are marked by comparable temporal consistency. To address this question, this research note examines data from Wave 13 (2003–2004), Wave 15 (2005–2006) and Wave 17 (2007–2008) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). Twenty-seven behavioral and 14 attitudinal dependent variables are studied. Consistency of effects is gauged via a series of multilevel models in which personality effects are permitted to vary by year. High levels of temporal consistency are observed for personality traits as represented by the Big Five framework.

It is posited that because of the attentional effect of losses, individuals would show more behavioral consistency in risk-taking tasks with losses, even in the absence of loss aversion. In two studies, the consistency of risky choices across different experience-based tasks was evaluated for gain, loss, and mixed (gain loss) tasks. In both studies, losses facilitated the consistency across tasks: the correlation between risk-taking choices in different tasks increased when the tasks involved frequent losses. Study 2 also showed a positive effect of losses on temporal consistency. Losses increased the correlation between risk-taking levels across two sessions that were 45 days apart. Also in Study 2, losses induced consistency between experiential risk-taking choices and self-reported ratings of risky behavior. In both studies, the positive effect of losses on consistency was observed even when the average participant did not exhibit loss aversion. Taken together, the results indicate that losses increase the consistency of risk-taking behavior and suggest that this is due to the effect of losses on attention. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mitigation measures to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) on highways are becoming an established practice in many jurisdictions. Most highway mitigation projects occur while roads are being upgraded, enlarged or repaired. Many smaller highways may not be subject to these types of upgrades in the near future but are nonetheless problematic for causing WVCs. Thus, it is important to find cost effective ways to locate and prioritize stretches of highway for mitigation. We present several criteria that can be used to assist in prioritizing the location of wildlife-proof fencing along a 94-km stretch of road in one of Canada's National Parks. We considered temporal consistency of WVC occurrences, conservation value (i.e. reduction in WVC rates), economic benefits (i.e. cost of mitigation vs benefits in WVC reduction), and a combined approach to prioritize management actions. We compared the efficacy of four different lengths of fencing (i.e. phase lengths) at meeting these criteria: 2 km, 5 km...

Robust egomotion estimation is a key prerequisite for making a robot truly autonomous. In previous work, a multimodel extension of random sample consensus (RANSAC) was introduced to deal with environments with rapid changes by incorporating moving object information. A multiscale matching algorithm was also proposed to resolve the issue of imperfect segmentation. In this paper, we present a novel specialization of RANSAC that extends the previous work. A unified framework is introduced to achieve simultaneously egomotion estimation, multiscale segmentation, and moving object detection in the RANSAC paradigm. The motivation of this work is to provide a robust real-time solution to the problem of egomotion estimation, segmentation, and moving object detection in highly dynamic environments. The idea is to augment the discriminative power of spatial and temporal appearances of objects by the spatiotemporal consistency. The objective is twofold. First, split mismerged segments and distinguish nonstationary objects from stationary objects by the spatial consistency. Second, merge oversegmented segments and differentiate moving objects from outlying objects by the temporal consistency. Moving objects of considerably different sizes, from pedestrians to trucks, can be properly segmented and correctly detected. We also show that the performance of egomotion estimation can be further improved by taking into account both stationary and moving object information. Our approach is extensively evaluated on challenging data sets and compared to the state of the art. The experiments also show that our approach serves as a general framework that works well with various planar range data. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

An active line of current investigation is how the five-factor model (FFM) of personality disorder might be applied by clinicians and particularly, how clinically useful this model is in comparison to the existing nomenclature. The current study is the first to investigate the temporal consistency of clinicians' application of the FFM and the DSM-IV-TR to their own patients. Results indicated that FFM ratings were relatively stable over six-months of treatment, supporting their use by clinicians, but also indexed potentially important clinical changes. Additionally, ratings of utility provided by the clinicians suggested that the FFM was more useful for clinical decision making than was the DSM-IV-TR model. We understand the clinical utility findings within the context of previous research indicating that the FFM is most useful among patients who are not prototypic for a personality disorder.

Recent studies of animal personality have focused on its proximate causation and its ecological and evolutionary significance, but have mostly ignored questions about its development, although an understanding of the latter is highly relevant to these other questions. One possible reason for this neglect is confusion about many of the concepts and terms that are necessary to study the development of animal personality. Here, we provide a framework for studying personality development that focuses on the properties of animal personality, and considers how and why these properties may change over time. We specifically focus on three dimensions of personality: (1) contextual generality at a given age or time, (2) temporal consistency in behavioural traits and in relationships between traits, and (3) the effects of genes and experience on the development of personality at a given age or life stage. We advocate using a new approach, contextual reaction norms, to study the contextual generality of personality traits at the level of groups, individuals and genotypes, show how concepts and terms borrowed from the literature on personality development in humans can be used to study temporal changes in personality at the level of groups and individuals, and demonstrate how classical developmental reaction norms can provide insights into the ways that genes and experiential factors interact across ontogeny to affect the expression of personality traits. In addition, we discuss how correlations between the effects of genes and experience on personality development can arise as a function of individuals’ control over their own environment, via niche-picking or niche-construction. Using this framework, we discuss several widely held assumptions about animal personality development that still await validation, identify neglected methodological issues, and describe a number of promising new avenues for future research.

Population, employment, and income changes in a region comprised of eighteen nonmetropolitan counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York are described using Bureau of Economic Analysis data covering 1970 to 2000. Changes at the county level are examined as net differences using pooled cross-section time series analysis. The specific focus of the empirical analysis is the effect that environmental amenities have in population and economic change. Empirical results indicate that a county's relative endowment of environmental amenities has positive economic change effects, but only when the county is relatively accessible as well. Further, the environmental amenity effects vary in their temporal consistency, even when accessibility is taken into account. In general, however, the reported results support the proposition that even relatively moderate environmental amenities can hold positive effects for economic change.

We investigated whether there is an imbalance in the nigrostriatal pathway in unlesioned young (8 weeks) and old (20 months) female rats. Rotation behavior and stepping tests were employed to evaluate the functional laterality of this pathway. In the absence of methamphetamine, there was no preference in the rotational direction in young rats but there was temporally consistent rotational preference in old rats. Methamphetamine injection (5 mg/kg, i.p.) uncovered the imbalance of rotational direction in young rats and enhanced in old rats. Old rat showed a temporally consistent rotational direction preference, as measured weekly for three consecutive weeks. Neither the presence nor the absence of methamphetamine affected rotational direction during the three weeks. Furthermore, statistical analyses revealed lateral malfunctions, which had been predicted from the methamphetamine-induced rotational test, to be consistent with those revealed by the stepping test in old rats. On the other hand, there was no temporal consistency in young rats. These results suggest that old female rats have a persistent functional imbalance of the nigrostriatal pathway.

Interactions between genotype and environment determine the underlying constitutive (background-level) resistance of individual plants to herbivory. Resistance, however, may change in response to herbivory (induced resistance). This study was designed to investigate temporal fluctuations in resistance, and to test the relative influences of constitutive and browsing-induced resistance on patterns of mammalian herbivory. A natural population of creosotebush, Larrea tridentata, browsed by black-tailed jackrabbits, Lepus californicus, served as the study system. Creosotebushes varied considerably in their resistance to jackrabbit browsing. Some individual plants were fed upon lightly and infrequently, while others had up to 90% of their living branches clipped during a single month, and were browsed several times per year. Resistance levels of individual shrubs were similar between seasons, and over time scales >2 yr. Shrubs with a history of heavy browsing (low constitutive resistance) were more likely to be browsed again than were individuals with a history of light browsing (high constitutive resistance). In an experiment designed to test jackrabbit response to constitutive resistance and recent browsing damage (artificially clipped vs. unclipped), the importance of both factors was confirmed. Jackrabbits browsed more heavily on plants with low than with high constitutive resistance, but less heavily on clipped shrubs than on controls. The enhanced resistance of clipped shrubs is interpreted as an induced response by individuals to herbivory, and may be responsible for variation in browsing levels of individual shrubs over time scales of 1-2 yr.

The temporal consistency of children's personality patterns as measured by the California Child Q-set was investigated in a sample of 151 German children between ages 4 and 6 years, and in a sample of 87 Dutch children between ages 10 and 12 years. Children's personality patterns showed a high interindividual variance of consistency. Correlational analyses revealed that children's ego resiliency predicted the longitudinal consistency of their Q-sort patterns irrespective of variations in age, culture, and type of judge. Itemwise extreme group comparisons of very consistent and very inconsistent children with a middle group showed that consistent children were characterized by culturally desirable traits, and inconsistent children by undesirable traits. The items typical for consistent children changed with age in agreement with the change in major developmental tasks. Discussion focuses on the processes that mediate the positive relations between the temporal consistency of personality, ego resiliency, and the age-appropriateness of personality.