Search results for " Competition"
showing 10 items of 819 documents
Responses to eccentric rotation in two space-bound subjects
1993
Two subjects were rotated eccentrically in the manner described previously. In contrast to a normal control group, settings of a luminous line to the subjective vertical were almost unrelated to the gravitoinertial vector before, and totally so shortly after, space flight. Only 3 days postflight did a clear relation to the gravitoinertial vector re-establish itself in the one subject who actually flew. The correspondence became normal 5 days after the flight. Since there were no clinical abnormalities evident in the subjects, it is suggested that both subjects suppressed their vestibular information, presumably as an effect of vestibular deconditioning training before the flight. In additio…
Ecological, morphological and genetic characterization of sympatric Haemonchus spp. parasites of domestic ruminants in Mauritania
1995
SUMMARYThe 4 species of ruminants (dromedary, zebu cattle, sheep and goat) in arid areas of Mauritania harboured Haemonchus spp. as the most frequent internal parasite. This was a rare situation where the 3 putative species, H. longistipes (dromedary), H. placet (zebu cattle) and H. contortus (sheep and goat) occurred sympatrically. The study was undertaken on hosts slaughtered at the Nouakchott abattoir, on the basis of monthly collection of worms. The environment was very unfavourable to H. placei and unfavourable to H. contortus, as intensity of infection remained low throughout the year, whereas infection in the dromedary was 10 to 20-fold higher. The survival strategies during the long…
A practical solution to the problem of automatic part-of-speech induction from text
2005
The problem of part-of-speech induction from text involves two aspects: Firstly, a set of word classes is to be derived automatically. Secondly, each word of a vocabulary is to be assigned to one or several of these word classes. In this paper we present a method that solves both problems with good accuracy. Our approach adopts a mixture of statistical methods that have been successfully applied in word sense induction. Its main advantage over previous attempts is that it reduces the syntactic space to only the most important dimensions, thereby almost eliminating the otherwise omnipresent problem of data sparseness.
Effects of the Blair/Brown NHS Reforms on Socioeconomic Equity in Health Care
2012
The central objectives of the ‘Blair/Brown’ reforms of the English NHS in the 2000s were to reduce hospital waiting times and improve the quality of care. However, critics raised concerns that the choice and competition elements of reform might undermine socioeconomic equity in health care. By contrast, the architects of reform predicted that accelerated growth in NHS spending combined with increased patient choice of hospital would enhance equity for poorer patients. This paper draws together and discusses the findings of three large-scale national studies designed to shed empirical light on this issue. Study one developed methods for monitoring change in neighbourhood level socioeconomic…
Legislative reforms and market dynamics in the provision of urban water service by private contract operators in Spain
2022
Abstract This paper studies the dynamics of concentration in the Spanish market for the provision of urban water service by private contract operators in the 2000–2020 period. The market is highly concentrated. Concentration increased until 2007, at which point it started to decline when Law 30/2007 on Public Sector Contracts and Organic Law 8/2007 on Political Party Financing were passed; before rising again from 2016 onwards. This latter trend results from strategic behaviour by the two leading operators, acquiring smaller companies with a notable presence in some regional markets. Further legislative reforms aimed at safeguarding space for competition are thus proposed.
Intraspecific biodiversity and 'spoilage potential' of Brettanomyces bruxellensis in Apulian wines
2015
Abstract The yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis, generally considered the main oenological spoilage microbe, is able to survive during the winemaking process and it confers off-odors to wine, in reason of its ability to produce considerable amounts of volatile phenols. Forty-eight isolates of B. bruxellensis, obtained from several wines collected in Apulia (Southern Italy), were genetically characterized using an integrated approach, including a strain biodiversity analysis by Sau-PCR. Furthermore, the production of volatile phenols was assessed in wine and in synthetic medium, confirming the oenological spoilage potential of the analysed strains. Our findings indicate a remarkable genetic va…
Interspecific territoriality in Calopteryx damselflies: the role of secondary sexual characters
2006
Interspecific territoriality is usually interpreted to result from interspecific interference competition, although it may also originate from mistaken species recognition. In the latter case, it may be based on similarity of secondary sexual characters. In the damselfly Calopteryx splendens, males have pigmented wing spots as a sexual character, and males with the largest spots resemble males of another species, Calopteryx virgo. Probably because of this resemblance, C. virgo males are more aggressive towards large- than small-spotted C. splendens males. We examined whether wing spot size of C. splendens males affects territorial interactions between the species. In a removal experiment, t…
Sex roles during conspecific territorial defence in the Zenaida dove, Zenaida aurita
2012
Social monogamy in vertebrates often involves the joint defence of an all-purpose territory by pair members. Although both sexes presumably benefit from holding a territory, sex-related variation is often observed in territory defence at the interspecific level, particularly in birds. Most studies of territorial defence in monogamous birds, however, have been conducted on songbirds or on bird species living in temperate areas. In contrast, data on nonoscine tropical bird species remain scarce. We experimentally studied territorial defence in 20 pairs of Zenaida doves, a tropical and territorial monogamous bird species that maintains year-round pair bonds. Overall, males responded to intrusi…
Speed-accuracy trade-off and its consequences in a scramble competition context.
2014
Abstract: Animals foraging in groups commonly respond to the presence of others by increasing their foraging rate, an increase that could come at the expense of prey detection accuracy. Yet the existence and consequences of such so-called 'speed-accuracy trade-offs' in group-foraging animals remain unexplored. We used group-feeding zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, to determine how search speed affects food detection accuracy and how a potential speed-accuracy trade-off influences feeding success. We found significant between-individual differences in hopping speed as well as evidence that faster individuals were more likely to overlook food, demonstrating the existence of a trade-off bet…
Larval size in acanthocephalan parasites : Influence of intraspecific competition and effects on intermediate host behavioural changes
2012
Abstract Background Parasites often face a trade-off between exploitation of host resources and transmission probabilities to the next host. In helminths, larval growth, a major component of adult parasite fitness, is linked to exploitation of intermediate host resources and is influenced by the presence of co-infecting conspecifics. In manipulative parasites, larval growth strategy could also interact with their ability to alter intermediate host phenotype and influence parasite transmission. Methods We used experimental infections of Gammarus pulex by Pomphorhynchus laevis (Acanthocephala), to investigate larval size effects on host behavioural manipulation among different parasite sibshi…