Randruphirsch2840

We propose that policy planning for biodiversity conservation in Europe should incorporate subjective assessments of social costs and benefits with the aim to achieve an increase of benefits for people and their equal distribution across social groups.Recently, the ATOMKI experiment has reported new evidence for the excess of e + e - events with a mass ∼ 17 MeV in the nuclear transitions of 4 He, that they previously observed in measurements with 8 Be. These observations could be explained by the existence of a new vector X 17 boson. So far, the search for the decay X 17 → e + e - with the NA64 experiment at the CERN SPS gave negative results. Here, we present a new technique that could be implemented in NA64 aiming to improve the sensitivity and to cover the remaining X 17 parameter space. If a signal-like event is detected, an unambiguous observation is achieved by reconstructing the invariant mass of the X 17 decay with the proposed method. To reach this goal an optimization of the X 17 production target, as well as an efficient and accurate reconstruction of two close decay tracks, is required. A dedicated analysis of the available experimental data making use of the trackers information is presented. This method provides independent confirmation of the NA64 published results [1], validating the tracking procedure. The detailed Monte Carlo study of the proposed setup and the background estimate show that the goal of the proposed search is feasible.Few studies have specifically focused on meaning in life in African Americans and many important questions remain, including whether effects of meaning in life are direct or moderated by levels of stress. read more In a national sample of 909 African Americans, we tested meaning in life as a prospective predictor of changes in depressive symptoms and positive affect over a 2.5-year period. Controlling for demographics and hassles, meaning in life predicted decreased depressive symptoms and increased positive affect across the span of 2.5 years. Moderation effects were not found for hassles, age, or income. Gender moderated the effect of meaning on positive affect such that effects were stronger for women than for men. These results suggest that, for African Americans, meaning in life appears to robustly protect against future depressive symptoms and promote positive affect over time unaffected by amount of stress experienced or most demographic factors.Genetic programming has found recent success as a tool for learning sets of features for regression and classification. Multidimensional genetic programming is a useful variant of genetic programming for this task because it represents candidate solutions as sets of programs. These sets of programs expose additional information that can be exploited for building block identification. In this work, we discuss this architecture and others in terms of their propensity for allowing heuristic search to utilize information during the evolutionary process. We investigate methods for biasing the components of programs that are promoted in order to guide search towards useful and complementary feature spaces. We study two main approaches 1) the introduction of new objectives and 2) the use of specialized semantic variation operators. We find that a semantic crossover operator based on stagewise regression leads to significant improvements on a set of regression problems. The inclusion of semantic crossover produces state-of-the-art results in a large benchmark study of open-source regression problems in comparison to several state-of-the-art machine learning approaches and other genetic programming frameworks. Finally, we look at the collinearity and complexity of the data representations produced by different methods, in order to assess whether relevant, concise, and independent factors of variation can be produced in application.The compromise effect arises when being close to the "middle" of a choice set makes an option more appealing. The compromise effect poses conceptual and practical problems for economic research by influencing choices, it can bias researchers' inferences about preference parameters. To study this bias, we conduct an experiment with 550 participants who made choices over lotteries from multiple price lists (MPLs). Following prior work, we manipulate the compromise effect to influence choices by varying the middle options of each MPL. We then estimate risk preferences using a discrete-choice model without a compromise effect embedded in the model. As anticipated, the resulting risk preference parameter estimates are not robust, changing as the compromise effect is manipulated. To disentangle risk preference parameters from the compromise effect and to measure the strength of the compromise effect, we augment our discrete-choice model with additional parameters that represent a rising penalty for expressing an indifference point further from the middle of the ordered MPL. Using this method, we estimate an economically significant magnitude for the compromise effect and generate robust estimates of risk preference parameters that are no longer sensitive to compromise-effect manipulations.In the context of growing visibility, recognition and acceptance of lesbian motherhood and gay fatherhood in countries such as Britain, it is important to ask how younger generations of sexual minorities approach the possibility of becoming a parent. Drawing on interviews with lesbians and gay men who do not have children but may have them in the future, I explore how people become aware that having children is an option. By attending to how this consciousness manifests in conversations and how conversations shape the consciousness, I illuminate specific dynamics that raising the topic of parenthood creates in intimate interactions. My data show that it is often unclear to men and women who form same-sex relationships whether they are socially expected to have children. I argue that this ambiguity requires a kind of 'coming out' through which feelings about parenthood are made explicit. Using the concept of coming out, I ask What if we were to think of people in terms of their 'reproductive orientations' rather than sexual identities? I suggest that, similar to expressing sexual identities, articulating reproductive orientations involves aligning with particular life trajectories based on binary logic. However, with ambiguous expectations about parenthood, neither having children nor remaining childfree is explicitly normative. As such, unlike coming out as lesbian or gay, which transgresses norms surrounding sexuality, coming out as wanting or not wanting to have children challenges normativity itself. I reflect on how this 'normative challenge' makes it possible to imagine parenthood and 'childfreedom' as intimacies of equal value.Communicable diseases 'flow' between locations. These flows dictate where and when certain communities will be affected. While the prediction of disease flows is essential for the timely intervention of epidemics, few studies have addressed this critical issue. This study predicts disease flows during an epidemic by considering the epidemiological, network, and temporal contextual factors using a deep learning approach. A series of scenario analyses helps identify the effects of these contextual factors on disease flows. Results show that the extended spatial-temporal effect of the epidemiological factors stimulates disease flows. The compound effects of the network factors enhance the transmission efficiency of these flows. Lastly, the temporal effect accelerates the combined effects of epidemiological and network factors on the flows. Findings of this study reveal the intricate nature of disease flows and lay a solid foundation for real-time surveillance of epidemics and pandemics to inform timely interventions for a broad range of communicable diseases.Community-engaged approaches to research can increase trust, enhance the relevance and use of research, address issues of equity and justice, and increase community knowledge and capacity. The HERCULES Exposome Research Center sought to engage local Atlanta communities to learn about and address their self-identified environmental health concerns. To do this, HERCULES and their stakeholder partners collaboratively developed a community grant program. The program was evaluated using mixed qualitative methods that included document review and semi-structured interviews. This paper presents the development, implementation, and evaluation of the grant program. HERCULES awarded one-year grants of $2,500 to 12 organizations within the Atlanta region, for a total 13 grants and $32,500 in funding. Grantees reported accomplishments related to community knowledge, awareness, and engagement in addition to material accomplishments. All grantees planned to sustain their programs, and some received additional funding to do so. Some grantees remained actively involved with HERCULES beyond the grant program. The HERCULES Community Grant Program was able to increase awareness of HERCULES among applicant communities, establish or enhance relationships with community-based organizations, and identify local environmental health concerns while providing tangible results for grantees and the communities they serve. Mini-grant programs are a feasible approach to address community environmental health and establish new relationships. This model may benefit others who aim to establish community-academic relationships while addressing community health concerns.Blackening waxcaps (Hygrocybe subsect. Hygrocybe) are a group of colorful and attractive mushrooms. However, the species diversity of subsect. Hygrocybe in China is still poorly known due to the limited sampling. In this study, three new species of this group from Guangdong Province, China are described and illustrated based on their morphological characteristics and molecular analyses of the internal transcribed spacer and large subunit ribosomal DNA regions. Hygrocybe debilipes from grasslands of South China Sea islands is mainly characterized by its orange red to vivid red pileus, fragile stipe, and ellipsoid to oblong basidiospores; H. griseonigricans from woodlands is characterized by its whitish to dull yellow pileus, quick black discoloration and the globose, subglobose to broadly ovoid basidiospores; H. rubroconica from woodlands is characterized by the hemispheric to plano-convex pileus when mature, semitranslucent fibrose stipe, and globose to ellipsoid basidiospores.

Herbivorous insects represent a major fraction of global biodiversity and the relationships they have established with their food plants range from strict specialists to broad generalists. Our knowledge of these relationships is of primary importance to basic (e.g. the study of insect ecology and evolution) and applied biology (e.g. monitoring of pest or invasive species) and yet remains very fragmentary and understudied. In Lepidoptera, caterpillars of families Saturniidae and Sphingidae are rather well known and considered to have adopted contrasting preferences in their use of food plants. The former are regarded as being rather generalist feeders, whereas the latter are more specialist.

To assemble and synthesise the vast amount of existing data on food plants of Lepidoptera families Saturniidae and Sphingidae, we combined three major existing databases to produce a dataset collating more than 26,000 records for 1256 species (25% of all species) in 121 (67%) and 167 (81%) genera of Saturniidae and Sphingidae, respectively.