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AbstractThis study aims to investigate the dynamics of contagion and its impact on firms, specifically focusing on how a rival’s failure to control an event can have adverse consequences for other firms. Through a comprehensive analysis of relevant theories, literature, and real-world cases, the study identifies key factors that contribute to the contagion process and proposes a framework for assessing the associated risk. The research highlights the crucial role of stakeholders in mediating the effects of rivals’ misfortunes on other firms and emphasizes how stakeholders’ identities shape their risk evaluations, thereby affecting the occurrence of contagion. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing a conceptualization of the contagion process and introducing the concept of “stakeholder identity” within the context of organizational and operational risk management. The findings offer practical insights to firms by emphasizing the significance of contagion risk, which is often overlooked in operational risk management strategies. Additionally, the study provides valuable guidance on how firms can effectively assess their vulnerability to contagion, enabling them to proactively manage and mitigate their risk.

If territorial males are able to assess the extent of threat posed by con- and heterospecific intruders in an area of sympatry, they could optimise the expression of territorial behaviour. I broadcast recorded vocalisation types of meadow and rock pipit males in the centre of territories to address the following questions: (1) do meadow pipit males respond to conspecific Soft calls, the ('contact') call emitted by conspecific birds that do not represent a threat to territory or the resident male's mate; (2) if so, how intensely do they respond to conspecific Soft calls compared with more provocative vocalisations emitted during territorial defence, including the Tsip call elicited by a watching male, or the species-specific part of song (Motif II) – associated with a serious territorial threat; (3) do they discriminate between the homologous Soft calls of meadow and rock pipits? Territorial males responded to conspecific Soft calls as often as to the other two vocalisation types broadcast in territories, but they did not approach the speaker as immediately or as often as to either Tsip or Motif II calls. The latter call elicits a more intense response compared with Tsip. Meadow pipit males discriminate conspecific from heterospecific Soft calls by showing enhanced response to conspecific relative to heterospecific Soft calls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocal communication is often used to signal willingness to escalate into a physical fight during territorial conflicts. In songbirds, starting to sing when an opponent already sings (song overlapping) has been suggested to signal aggressive intent (willingness to escalate). We used a multiyear data set to test whether song overlapping predicts aggressiveness in great tits, Parus major. Territorial males were subjected twice to a simulated territorial intrusion when their mate was in the egg-laying phase, and twice when she was incubating. Males were presented with a taxidermic mount and a noninteractive playback of a conspecific song near their nestbox. The experiment was conducted over 3 consecutive years, resulting in repeated measures for males that bred across multiple years. The estimated minimum approach distance to the intruder, a repeatable and heritable trait that predicts the likelihood of physical attack, was used as a measure of aggression. We determined the duration of song overlapping by the focal male relative to values expected by chance. Against expectations, we found that birds that overlapped were less (rather than more) aggressive. In addition, variance partitioning demonstrated that this link resulted from a within-individual effect: when birds became less aggressive from one observation to the next, they also overlapped more. There was no among-individual effect: individuals that were on average more aggressive did not, on average, overlap either more or less than others. Our results thus imply that song overlapping is linked to aggression but opposite to expectations, and not among individuals. Furthermore, the majority of birds overlapped at or below chance levels. Overall, song overlapping may not signal aggressive intent but rather 'nonengagement', or result from interference avoidance, allowing aggressive residents to better hear an intruder's acoustic output during territorial intrusions. • Song output correlates negatively with aggression within and among individuals. • Song overlapping correlates negatively with aggression only within individuals. • Birds mostly overlapped at or below chance levels. • Overlapping did not signal aggression but may indicate nonengagement. • Interference avoidance is an alternative explanation for the patterns we found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose To point out the need for standardized terminology for digital image analysis and to collect data by surveying radiologic technology professionals for a more comprehensive, national-breadth study. Methods A mixed-method pilot study was conducted, in which a survey was emailed to 4 Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology--accredited radiography programs in July and August 2019. Eight educators and 28 radiologic technologists responded, and acceptance was evaluated on 3 of the proposed terms: signal, signal value, and signal variance (later changed to signal differences). Quantitative data results were analyzed in Microsoft Forms and percentage of acceptance rates calculated. Respondents who did not accept the proposed terms were asked to provide reasoning in open-ended responses, which were analyzed using manual coding and categorization. Results The term signal received an 88% acceptance rate among educators and a 96% rate among radiographers. Signal value was accepted by 88% of educators and 79% of radiographers. The lowest acceptance rate was for the term signal variance (educators, 63%; radiographers, 79%). Open-ended responses were categorized into themes revealing respondent concerns about the use of signal value, which might result in forgetting about radiation dose (4 respondents) and how signal value relates to image receptor exposure and exposure indicator value (2 respondents). Concerns about signal variance involved contrast being easier to understand because it is visible (2 respondents), confusion with the usage of the proposed term (2 respondents), and preference for contrast because of its current use (2 respondents). Discussion Recent history indicates confusion regarding which terms effectively describe the new image quality factors that dictate proper use of digital radiography. The proposed terms evaluated in this pilot study received a mean acceptance rate of 83.5%, suggesting understanding of terms related to digital image analysis from participating educators and radiographers. Conclusion The findings of this pilot study indicate a need to standardize terminology related to digital image quality factors. However, these preliminary results should be interpreted with caution because of the low response rate. Readers can participate in helping to establish a universal language for digital image analysis by scanning the quick response (QR) code or clicking the link at the end of the article and completing the survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some risk events, assessed as relatively minor by technical experts, can elicit strong public concerns and result in substantial impacts on society and the economy. This is especially true in cases involving low-level radiation exposure. Social amplification is a conceptual framework that seeks systematically to link technical assessments of health and safety impacts with assessments of individual and social risk perceptions and risk-related behaviors. Individuals and social groups can amplify (or in some cases, attenuate) risk as they process information about events, and events can produce secondary ripple effects that may spread far beyond the initial impact and may even affect unrelated technologies or institutions. Events that are highly dreaded, poorly understood, or both have high potential for these second-order effects. Social distrust of institutions and their managers plays an important part in amplifying risk. Understanding how trust is shaped, altered, lost, or rebuilt in the processing of risk by individuals and groups is a priority need in social amplification research. The social amplification of risk has become an essential part of an integrated assessment of risk. Recent changes in nuclear energy policy cannot be understood without serious examination of the social amplification and attenuation processes at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a scent mark to be informative it must provide a reliable, honest signal that allows individuals that detect it to predict fitness tradeoffs if they choose or not choose to respond to it. I argue that scent marks provide a great deal of information about the sender to receivers. The manner in which an animal uses this information to make decisions will depend on the context and manner in which it encounters these scent marks. Receivers can use the information found in the scent marks and odors to locate the donor, learn its identity, determine the donor's phenotype or genotype, and assess whether the scent marks were encountered earlier by conspecifics. For receivers to make potentially informed decisions, when they encounter the scent marks of conspecifics with whom they have had different experiences across a variety of contexts higher level cognitive processing involving procedural memory, episodic memory, autobiographical memory and making judgements of numerical discrimination would be required. Senders should have some insight into the receivers to increase the likelihood that the targets respond appropriately to the scent mark by reducing uncertainty. The sender's state or the current state of the environment and the context will affect when and where the scent marks were deposited. Decisions to deposit scent marks and respond to them must represent a tradeoff in the benefits and costs to the sender and receivers in terms of their fitness and survival. The actual tradeoff should be context dependent and reflect the experience, physiology, and life history constraints affecting the receiver. Calculating these tradeoffs likely involves some cognitive processing and requires some sort of information transfer between the sender and the receiver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is the foundation of all social systems, and learning is perhaps the most important cognitive tool. But how do these two critical faculties interact? With social insects being some of the best learners of the invertebrate world, and indisputably the most communicative, we examine the role of learning and experience in social insect communication. Learning plays a major role for both senders and receivers. A sender's experience can modulate what information is available for communication, whether communication is effective and whether individuals are motivated to communicate. Signalling about a resource is often modulated relative to the value of that resource and relative to the value of sharing information about it. The receiver's experience and knowledge can affect which parts of a signal's information content it attends to, how this information is acted on and, indeed, whether it attends to communication at all. Ultimately, while innate responses form the basis of social insect communication, learning is often a critical modulator of communication processes. • Social systems rely on communication, and learning is an important cognitive tool. • Learning plays a major modulatory role in social insect communication processes. • Learning mainly affects the context when signals are produced and used. • Receivers might also learn about the value and quality of a signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cichlid fishes are a textbook example of rapid speciation and exuberant diversity--this applies especially to haplochromines, a lineage with approximately 1800 species. Haplochromine males uniquely possess oval, bright spots on their anal fin, called 'egg-spots' or 'egg-dummies'. These are presumed to be an evolutionary key innovation that contributed to the tribe's evolutionary success. Egg-spots have been proposed to mimic the ova of the mouthbrooding females of the corresponding species, contribute to fertilization success and even facilitate species recognition. Interestingly, egg-spot number varies extensively not only between species, but also within some populations. This high degree of intraspecific variation may appear to be counterintuitive since selection might be expected to act to stabilize traits that are correlated with fitness measures. We addressed this 'paradox' experimentally, and found that in the haplochromine cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni, the number of egg-spots was related to male age, body condition and dominance status. Intriguingly, the egg-spot number also had a high heritable component (narrow sense heritability of 0.5). These results suggest that the function of egg-spots might have less to do with fertilization success or species recognition, but rather relate to mate choice and/or male- male competition, helping to explain the high variability in this important trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German minimization concept for acrylamide was established as a reaction to the concern caused by the discovery of acrylamide in a wide range of foodstuffs in 2002. It is a pragmatic approach based on a voluntary agreement of all partners involved, governmental organizations as well as the affected industry, with the common aim of a gradual reduction of acrylamide contents in food. Now, about four years after its initiation, an evaluation has shown the potential of this concept. For some commodity groups, minimization of acrylamide contents has already been successful, while further minimization efforts are necessary in other groups to achieve a comprehensive minimization in all food groups concerned. In contrast to legal regulations, the minimization concept is a soft risk management instrument. It represents a novel approach, for instance to cope with situations when maximum levels are not available. Such a concept can be considered as a smart solution to bring about preventive measures resulting in health protection. As an innovative risk management tool, it has the potential to tackle the challenges of consumer protection in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]