Browsing by Subject "BEHAVIOR"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Conspecific investigation of a deceased forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis)
    (PACHYDERM, 2017-07-01) Hawley, CR; Beirne, C; Meier, A; Poulsen, JR
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Critical information gaps remain in understanding impacts of industrial seismic surveys on marine vertebrates
    (Endangered Species Research, 2019-01-01) Elliott, BW; Read, AJ; Godley, BJ; Nelms, SE; Nowacek, DP
    © The authors 2019. Anthropogenic noise is increasing throughout the world's oceans. One major contributor is industrial seismic surveys-a process typically undertaken to locate and estimate the quantity of oil and gas deposits beneath the seafloor-which, in recent years, has increased in magnitude and scope in some regions. Regulators permit this activity despite widespread uncertainties regarding the potential ecological impacts of seismic surveys and gaps in baseline information on some key species of conservation concern. Research to date suggests that impacts vary, from displacement to direct mortality, but these effects remain poorly understood for most species. Here, we summarize potential effects of seismic surveys, describe key knowledge gaps, and recommend broad-scale research priorities for 3 impacted taxonomic groups: fish, marine mammals, and sea turtles. We also suggest further technological advances, improved mitigation measures, and better policy and management structures to minimize the ecological impacts of seismic surveys in light of scientific uncertainty.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Homogenization of thermal-hydro-mass transfer processes
    (Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - Series S, 2015-02-01) Xu, S; Yue, X
    In the repository, multi-physics processes are induced due to the long-time heat-emitting from the nuclear waste, which is modeled as a nonlinear system with oscillating coefficients. In this paper we first derive the homogenized system for the thermal-hydro-mass transfer processes by the technique of two-scale convergence, then present some error estimates for the first order expansions.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Household Charitable Giving at the Intersection of Gender, Marital Status, and Religion
    (Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2018-02) Eagle, D; Keister, LA; Read, JG
    © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017. Past research reveals mixed results regarding the relationship between gender and charitable giving. We show gender plays a significant role in giving but only when considered alongside marital status and religion. Using the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, we model a household’s propensity to give and the amount given. We extend past research by disaggregating unmarried households to look at divorced, widowed, and never-married households, and by including multiple religion measures. Results indicate households headed by never-married females have lower giving levels compared with those headed by divorced and widowed women. In households headed by single males, these differences are largely absent. Religious attendance has a stronger association with giving in male-headed households. The respondent’s gender is also related to the amount married households report giving to charity. Future research on giving should consider both gender and marital status to more fully capture increasing diversity in American families.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Nonstate Actors and Compliance with International Agreements: An Empirical Analysis of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
    (International Organization, 2018) Jensen, NM; Malesky, EJ
    © 2017 The IO Foundation. International relations scholarship has made great progress on the study of compliance with international agreements. While persuasive, most of this work has focused on states' de jure compliance decisions, largely excluding the de facto behavior of nonstate actors whose actions the agreement hopes to constrain. Of particular interest has been whether the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (ABC) might reduce the propensity of multinational corporations (MNCs) to bribe officials in host countries through its mechanisms of extraterritoriality and extensive peer review. Unfortunately, research is hampered by reporting bias. Since the convention raises the probability of investors' punishment for bribery in their home countries, it reduces both the incentives for bribery and willingness to admit to the activity. This generates uncertainty over which of these incentives drives any correlation between signing the convention and reductions in reported bribery. We address this problem by employing a specialized survey experiment that shields respondents and reduces reporting bias. We find that after the onset of Phase 3 in 2010, when the risk of noncompliance increased for firms subject to the OECD-ABC, those MNCs reduced their actual bribery relative to their nonsignatory competitors.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Postponing the dynamical transition density using competing interactions
    (Granular Matter, 2020-08-01) Charbonneau, P; Kundu, J
    Systems of dense spheres interacting through very short-ranged attraction are known from theory, simulations and colloidal experiments to exhibit dynamical reentrance. Their liquid state can thus be fluidized at higher densities than possible in systems with pure repulsion or with long-ranged attraction. A recent mean-field, infinite-dimensional calculation predicts that the dynamical arrest of the fluid can be further delayed by adding a longer-ranged repulsive contribution to the short-ranged attraction. We examine this proposal by performing extensive numerical simulations in a three-dimensional system. We first find the short-ranged attraction parameters necessary to achieve the densest liquid state, and then explore the parameter space for an additional longer-ranged repulsion that could further enhance reentrance. In the family of systems studied, no significant (within numerical accuracy) delay of the dynamical arrest is observed beyond what is already achieved by the short-ranged attraction. Possible explanations are discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The next widespread bamboo flowering poses a massive risk to the giant panda
    (Biological Conservation, 2019-06-01) Tian, Zhaoxue; Liu, Xuehua; Fan, Zhiyong; Liu, Jianguo; Pimm, Stuart L; Liu, Lanmei; Garcia, Claude; Songer, Melissa; Shao, Xiaoming; Skidmore, Andrew; Wang, Tiejun; Zhang, Yuke; Chang, Youde; Jin, Xuelin; Gong, Minghao; Zhou, Lingguo; He, Xiangbo; Dang, Gaodi; Zhu, Yun; Cai, Qiong
    The IUCN Red List has downgraded several species from “endangered” to “vulnerable” that still have largely unknown extinction risks. We consider one of those downgraded species, the giant panda, a bamboo specialist. Massive bamboo flowering could be a natural disaster for giant pandas. Using scenario analysis, we explored possible impacts of the next bamboo flowering in the Qinling and Minshan Mountains that are home to most giant pandas. Our results showed that the Qinling Mountains could experience large-scale bamboo flowering leading to a high risk of widespread food shortages for the giant pandas by 2020. The Minshan Mountains could similarly experience a large-scale bamboo flowering with a high risk for giant pandas between 2020 and 2030 without suitable alternative habitat in the surrounding areas. These scenarios highlight thus-far unforeseen dangers of conserving giant pandas in a fragmented habitat. We recommend advance measures to protect giant panda from severe population crashes when flowering happens. This study also suggests the need to anticipate and manage long-term risks to other downgraded species.