Warfare is a collective action problem, and groups often stand to benefit from the quick and coordinated action that leaders can provide. This basic principle is as true in modern political contexts ...as it has been across our evolutionary history, and there is growing evidence that leadership has evolved, in part, to solve such collective action problems. Despite the material and reproductive benefits of leadership for groups, leaders may also seek private gains at the expense of group interests. Drawing upon insights from social and evolutionary psychology, I explain how leaders solve collective action problems in warfare, but also how leaders manipulate audience preferences when their own interests do not align with group interests. Specifically, when leaders anticipate great private gain from foreign aggression while facing steep public resistance at home, leaders will misframe the conflict as defensive rather than offensive in nature. I provide an evolutionary analysis that explains why leaders exploit this framing specifically, and I identify the specific aspects of conflict framing that are most likely to be exploited toward this end.
The human gut microbiome has been implicated in a variety of health outcomes, and extensive research has aimed to understand its composition and function, primarily via metagenomic analyses. An ...examination of how the microbiome develops and interacts through interspecies competition and cooperation has been lacking so far. In their recent work, Venturelli et al () build a synthetic gut community and accurately predict its dynamics with a simple network of pairwise interactions.
Analyses of how the gut microbiome develops and evolves through interspecies competition and cooperation have been lacking. In their recent work, Venturelli et al () build a synthetic gut bacterial community and predict its dynamics with a simple network of pairwise interactions.
Abstract
The expansion of wind power poses distinct and varied geographic challenges to a sustainable energy transition. However, current knowledge of its land use impacts and synergies is limited by ...reliance on static characterizations that overlook the role of turbine technology and plant design in mediating interactions with the environment. Here, we investigate how wind technology development and innovation have shaped landscape interactions with social and ecological systems within the United States and contribute to evolving land area requirements. This work assesses trends in key land use facets of wind power using a holistic set of metrics to establish an evidence base that researchers, technology designers, land use managers, and policymakers can use in envisioning how future wind-intensive energy systems may be jointly optimized for clean energy, social, and environmental objectives. Since 2000, we find dynamic land occupancy patterns and regional trends that are driven by advancing technology and geographic factors. Though most historical U.S. wind deployment has been confined to the temperate grassland biome in the nation’s interior, regional expansion has implicated diverse land use and cover types. A large percentage of the typical wind plant footprint (∼96% to
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99%) is not directly impacted by permanent physical infrastructure, allowing for multiple uses in the spaces between turbines. Surprisingly, turbines are commonly close to built structures. Moreover, rangeland and cropland have supported 93.4% of deployment, highlighting potential synergies with agricultural lands. Despite broadly decreasing capacity densities, offsetting technology improvements have stabilized power densities. Land use intensity, defined as the ratio of direct land usage to lifetime power generation of wind facilities, has also trended downwards. Although continued deployment on disturbed lands, and in close proximity to existing wind facilities and other infrastructure, could minimize the extent of impacts, ambitious decarbonization trajectories may predispose particular biomes to cumulative effects and risks from regional wind power saturation. Increased land-use and sustainability feedback in technology and plant design will be critical to sustainable management of wind power.
The study of warfare from an evolutionary perspective has expanded rapidly over the last couple of decades. However, it has tended to focus on the ancestral origins, prevalence, and instruments of ...war rather than adaptationist analyses of its underlying psychology. I argue that our evolved coalitional psychology may contain a set of distinct evolved heuristics designed specifically for offensive and defensive coalitional aggression. Data from two survey experiments are presented, in which subjects were given scenarios depicting offensive or defensive aggression and were told to make decisions, for example, regarding their willingness to participate in the conflict, their opinions of others who did not choose to participate, and their expectations benefit. The results indicate that humans do indeed distinguish readily between these two domains and that their willingness to participate, as well as their emotional responses toward others, is highly contingent upon this informational cue in adaptively relevant ways. In addition, and consistent with parental investment theory, data reveal a range of sex differences in attitudes toward coalitional aggression in the two conflict domains. Beyond the study of warfare, this project has implications for our understanding of the relationship between individual behavior and group dynamics, as well as for our understanding of the mechanisms by which the psychological framing of political events can lead to important social outcomes.
Hypertension is a leading cause of premature death worldwide and the most important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Effective screening programs, communication with patients, ...regular monitoring, and adherence to treatment are essential to successful management but may be challenging in health systems facing resource constraints. This qualitative study explored patients' knowledge, attitudes, behaviour and health care seeking experiences in relation to detection, treatment and control of hypertension in Colombia. We conducted in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 26 individuals with hypertension and 4 family members in two regions. Few participants were aware of ways to prevent high blood pressure. Once diagnosed, most reported taking medication but had little information about their condition and had a poor understanding of their treatment regime. The desire for good communication and a trusting relationship with the doctor emerged as key themes in promoting adherence to medication and regular attendance at medical appointments. Barriers to accessing treatment included co-payments for medication; costs of transport to health care facilities; unavailability of drugs; and poor access to specialist care. Some patients overcame these barriers with support from social networks, family members and neighbours. However, those who lacked such support, experienced loneliness and struggled to access health care services. The health insurance scheme was frequently described as administratively confusing and those accessing the state subsidized system believed that the treatment was inferior to that provided under the compulsory contributory system. Measures that should be addressed to improve hypertension management in Colombia include better communication between health care professionals and patients, measures to improve understanding of the importance of adherence to treatment, reduction of co-payments and transport costs, and easier access to care, especially in rural areas.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive and deadliest cancer worldwide with an overall survival rate, all stages combined, of still <10% at 5 years. The poor prognosis ...is attributed to challenges in early detection, a low opportunity for radical resection, limited response to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and resistance to immune therapy. Moreover, pancreatic tumoral cells are surrounded by an abundant desmoplastic stroma, which is responsible for creating a mechanical barrier, preventing appropriate vascularization and leading to poor immune cell infiltration. Accumulated evidence suggests that PDAC is impaired with multiple "immune defects", including a lack of high-quality effector cells (CD4, CD8 T cells, dendritic cells), barriers to effector cell infiltration due to that desmoplastic reaction, and a dominance of immune cells such as regulatory T cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and M2 macrophages, resulting in an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). Although recent studies have brought new insights into PDAC immune TME, its understanding remains not fully elucidated. Further studies are required for a better understanding of human PDAC immune TME, which might help to develop potent new therapeutic strategies by correcting these immune defects with the hope to unlock the resistance to (immune) therapy. In this review, we describe the main effector immune cells and immunosuppressive actors involved in human PDAC TME, as well as their implications as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
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•Seedbank density was higher at locations exhibiting greater genotypic richness, evenness and intermingling across spatial scales.•Metrics of genotypic diversity were most efficiently ...captured at the largest (2 m) scale of sampling.•Spatial genetic structure and pairwise genotypic relatedness was low, suggesting H. wrightii has an efficient mechanism to avoid inbreeding.
Seagrass conservation and management plans are placing increased emphasis on the collection of data related to seagrass bed “condition” such as vegetative characteristics, seed production and genetic diversity. One important aspect of genetic diversity in species that reproduce both sexually and asexually is genotypic diversity. Genotypic (clonal) diversity is usually described as the proportion of unique genets within a population (richness), but it can also be characterized in other ways such as the degree to which individual ramets are distributed among genets (evenness) or the spatial arrangement of genets relative to one another (architecture). Genotypic richness, evenness, and architecture have the potential to influence sexual reproduction by affecting the proximity of genets, a key feature in dioecious species where pollen dispersal is limited and clones can vary greatly in size. They may also differ substantially according to the scale at which they are measured. This study examined genotypic richness, evenness and architecture across multiple spatial scales in the seagrass Halodule wrightii, and its association with seedbank density from three sites in the northwest Gulf of Mexico. While the magnitude of diversity estimates differed, the overall patterns remained consistent across scales. Seedbank density ranged from 19 +/- 9–188 +/- 30 seeds m−2, following a gradient from north to south. The highest and most consistent production of seeds occurred at a site where richness (R: 0.24 - 0.42) and evenness (ED: 0.67 - 0.93) were uniformly high across spatial scales, and clonal architecture (Ac: 0.20 – 0.36) was represented by a high degree of intermingling.
The study of warfare is one of the oldest and most important dynamics of interest for students of politics. This area of research is predominantly − but not exclusively − undertaken within the ...sub-field of international relations (IR). IR theorists argue that war is the contingent outcome of the interaction among variables operating at three “levels of analysis”: the international level, the domestic level, and the individual level. The international level explores variables that operate exclusively “above” states such as anarchy and the distribution of power. The domestic level explores variables that operate exclusively within states, such as regime type and bureaucratic design. The individual level explores the ways in which individual psychology (i.e. beliefs, culture, personality) contributes to the outbreak of war. We also offer a discussion of new puzzles and challenges in the study of warfare, such as the decline of war hypothesis and the growing prevalence of civil war, insurgency and non-state violence.
We present a symmetric physical layer based secret key generation scheme for Point-to-Point Optical Link (PPOL) communication by exploiting Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) as a random and ...inimitable channel characteristic. The randomness and security strength of generated cryptographic keys based on PMD is significantly high. In this paper, we present that random modulation of a probe signal caused by PMD in a high-speed data communication network (40 Gb/s and 60 Gb/s) is reciprocal with average Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.862, despite the presence of optical nonlinearities, dispersion, and noise in the system. 128-bit symmetric cryptographic key has been successfully generated using the proposed scheme. Moreover, PMD-based encryption keys passed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tests. We have shown through simulations with a 50 km link that, with optimal key generation settings, symmetric keys can be generated with high randomness (high P-values for NIST randomness tests) and with sufficient generation rates (>50%). Furthermore, we considered an attack model of a non-invasive adversary intercepting at 10 km into the link and found that the generated keys have high average key bit mismatch rates (>40%).
Summary
Background
The nocebo effect is a negative effect of a pharmacological or nonpharmacological medical treatment that is induced by patients' expectations, and that is unrelated to the ...physiological action of the treatment. The nocebo effect can negatively affect treatment outcomes.
Aim
To develop evidence‐based consensus recommendations for the prevention and management of the nocebo effect in biosimilar‐treated patients with IBD.
Methods
The “NOCE‐BIO Consensus Group” was composed of 19 members from five European countries, and with different fields of expertise. A literature review on the nocebo effect, with specific focus on information about its prevention and management in biosimilar‐treated IBD patients, was performed. Preliminary statements were formulated and voted on during a consensus group meeting held in Milan, Italy, in July 2018. A statement was accepted if >75% of participants voted 4 (“agree”) or 5 (“strongly agree”) on a scale of 1‐5.
Results
Consensus was reached on 11 recommendation statements. Seven statements reached consensus after one voting round and four statements reached consensus after two voting rounds. All statements were supported by very low‐quality level of evidence. The panel agreed that patient‐health‐care provider relationship is a key driver of acceptance of biosimilars, which limits the risk of negative bias and the nocebo effect. Lack of knowledge among patients and health‐care providers about the effectiveness and safety of biosimilars should be minimized. Education about biosimilars needs to be tailored to the individual patient, and positive framing is recommended.
Conclusions
The nocebo effect is under‐recognised in the era of biosimilars, although it may negatively impact on the cost‐savings of biosimilars. Future research should focus on the magnitude, the risk factors, the impact, and the management of the nocebo effect in biosimilars‐treated IBD patients.
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