-
Royal Society Open Science Apr 2021Competition for resources shapes ecological and evolutionary relationships. Physiological capacities such as in locomotor performance can influence the fitness of...
Competition for resources shapes ecological and evolutionary relationships. Physiological capacities such as in locomotor performance can influence the fitness of individuals by increasing competitive success. Social hierarchy too can affect outcomes of competition by altering locomotor behaviour or because higher ranking individuals monopolize resources. Here, we tested the hypotheses that competitive success is determined by sprint performance or by social status. We show that sprint performance of individuals measured during escape responses (fast start) or in an accelerated sprint test did not correlate with realized sprint speed while competing for food within a social group of five fish; fast start and accelerated sprint speed were higher than realized speed. Social status within the group was the best predictor of competitive success, followed by realized speed. Social hierarchies in zebrafish are established within 7 days of their first encounter, and interestingly, there was a positive correlation between social status and realized speed 1 and 4 days after fish were placed in a group, but not after 7 days. These data indicate that physiological performance decreases in importance as social relationships are established. Also, maximal physiological capacities were not important for competitive success, but swimming speed changed with social context.
PubMed: 33868699
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.210146 -
Journal of Epidemiology and Community... Sep 2002In this glossary, the authors address eight key questions pertinent to health inequalities: (1) What is the distinction between health inequality and health inequity?;... (Review)
Review
In this glossary, the authors address eight key questions pertinent to health inequalities: (1) What is the distinction between health inequality and health inequity?; (2) Should we assess health inequalities themselves, or social group inequalities in health?; (3) Do health inequalities mainly reflect the effects of poverty, or are they generated by the socioeconomic gradient?; (4) Are health inequalities mediated by material deprivation or by psychosocial mechanisms?; (5) Is there an effect of relative income on health, separate from the effects of absolute income?; (6) Do health inequalities between places simply reflect health inequalities between social groups or, more significantly, do they suggest a contextual effect of place?; (7) What is the contribution of the lifecourse to health inequalities?; (8) What kinds of inequality should we study?
Topics: Health Status; Health Status Indicators; Humans; Poverty; Poverty Areas; Social Justice; Socioeconomic Factors; Terminology as Topic
PubMed: 12177079
DOI: 10.1136/jech.56.9.647 -
PeerJ 2018The size and structure of social groups of animals can be governed by a range of ecological factors and behavioral interactions. In small, highly site-attached coral...
The size and structure of social groups of animals can be governed by a range of ecological factors and behavioral interactions. In small, highly site-attached coral reef fishes, group size is often constrained by the size of the habitat patch they are restricted to. However, group size may also be influenced by changes in abundance along important environmental gradients, such as depth or distance offshore. In addition, the body size and sex structure within social groups can be determined by the size of the habitat patch and the dominance relationships among group members. Here we examined the roles of ecological factors and behavioral interactions in governing group size and structure in the orange clownfish, on inshore reefs in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. We quantified relationships between ecological variables (anemone size, depth, and distance from shore) and social group variables (group size, and total body length of the three largest individuals (ranks 1, 2, and 3)). Anemone size explained the greatest amount of variation in group variables, with strong, positive relationships between anemone surface area and group size, and total length of individuals ranked 1, 2, and 3. Group structure was also weakly correlated with increasing depth and distance from shore, most likely through the indirect effects of these environmental gradients on anemone size. Variation in group size and the lengths of ranks 2 and 3 were all closely related to the length of rank 1. Path analysis indicated that anemone size has a strong direct effect on the length of rank 1. In turn, the length of rank 1 directly affects the size of the subordinate individuals and indirectly affects the group size through its influence on subordinates. Hence, anemone size directly and indirectly controls social group size and structure in this space-limited fish species. It is also likely that anemonefish have feedback effects on anemone size, although this could not be differentiated in the path analysis.
PubMed: 30416882
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5841 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Jul 2021Geo-social community detection over location-based social networks combining both location and social factors to generate useful computational results has attracted...
Geo-social community detection over location-based social networks combining both location and social factors to generate useful computational results has attracted increasing interest from both industrial and academic communities. In this paper, we formulate a novel community model, termed (GSG), to enforce both spatial and social factors to generate significant computational patterns and to investigate the problem of community detection over location-based social networks. Specifically, GSG detection aims to extract all group-venue clusters, where users are similar to each other in the same group and they are located in a minimum covering circle (MCC) for which the radius is no greater than a distance threshold γ. Then, we present a GSGD algorithm following a three-step paradigm to enumerate all qualified GSGs in a large network. We propose effective optimization techniques to efficiently enumerate all communities in a network. Furthermore, we extend a significant GSG detection problem to top- geo-social group (TGSG) mining. Rather than extracting all qualified GSGs in a network, TGSG aims to return feasibility groups to guarantee the diversity. We prove the hardness of computing the TGSGs. Nevertheless, we propose the effective greedy approach with a guaranteed approximation ratio of 1-1/e. Extensive empirical studies on real and synthetic networks show the superiority of our algorithm when compared with existing methods and demonstrate the effectiveness of our new community model and the efficiency of our optimization techniques.
Topics: Algorithms; Models, Theoretical; Social Networking
PubMed: 34283106
DOI: 10.3390/s21134551 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Apr 2011How task specialization, individual task performance and within-group behavioural variation affects fitness is a longstanding and unresolved problem in our understanding...
How task specialization, individual task performance and within-group behavioural variation affects fitness is a longstanding and unresolved problem in our understanding of animal societies. In the temperate social spider, Anelosimus studiosus, colony members exhibit a behavioural polymorphism; females either exhibit an aggressive 'asocial' or docile 'social' phenotype. We assessed individual prey-capture success for both phenotypes, and the role of phenotypic composition on group-level prey-capture success for three prey size classes. We then estimated the effect of group phenotypic composition on fitness in a common garden, as inferred from individual egg-case masses. On average, asocial females were more successful than social females at capturing large prey, and colony-level prey-capture success was positively associated with the frequency of the asocial phenotype. Asocial colony members were also more likely to engage in prey-capture behaviour in group-foraging situations. Interestingly, our fitness estimates indicate females of both phenotypes experience increased fitness when occupying colonies containing unlike individuals. These results imply a reciprocal fitness benefit of within-colony behavioural variation, and perhaps division of labour in a spider society.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Female; Male; Phenotype; Population Dynamics; Social Behavior; Spiders
PubMed: 20943687
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.1700 -
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 2021Neophobia (the fearful reaction to novel stimuli or situations) has a crucial effect on individual fitness and can vary within and across species. However, the factors...
ABSTRACT
Neophobia (the fearful reaction to novel stimuli or situations) has a crucial effect on individual fitness and can vary within and across species. However, the factors predicting this variation are still unclear. In this study, we assessed whether individual characteristics (rank, social integration, sex) and species socio-ecological characteristics (dietary breadth, group size, domestication) predicted variation in neophobia. For this purpose, we conducted behavioral observations and experimental tests on 78 captive individuals belonging to 10 different ungulate species-an ideal taxon to study inter-specific variation in neophobia given their variety in socio-ecological characteristics. Individuals were tested in their social groups by providing them with familiar food, half of which had been positioned close to a novel object. We monitored the individual latency to approach and eat food and the proportion of time spent in its proximity. Using a phylogenetic approach and social network analyses, we showed that across ungulate species neophobia was higher in socially more integrated individuals, as compared to less integrated ones. In contrast, rank and sex did not predict inter-individual differences in neophobia. Moreover, species differed in their levels of neophobia, with Barbary sheep being on average less neophobic than all the other study species. As group size in Barbary sheep was larger than in all the other study species, these results support the hypothesis that larger group size predicts lower levels of neophobia, and confirm ungulates as a highly promising taxon to study animal behavior and cognition with a comparative perspective.
SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT
In several species, individuals may respond fearfully to novel stimuli, therefore reducing the risks they may face. However, it is yet unclear if certain individuals or species respond more fearfully to novelty. Here, we provided food to 78 individual ungulates with different characteristics (e.g., sex, rank, social integration, group size, domestication, dietary breadth) in different controlled conditions (e.g., when food was close to novel or to familiar objects). Across species, we found that socially integrated individuals responded more fearfully in all species. Moreover, being in larger groups decreased the probability of fearfully responding to novelty.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-021-03041-0.
PubMed: 34177046
DOI: 10.1007/s00265-021-03041-0 -
F1000Research 2021The dearth of data on adolescents highlighted in the UN's data disaggregation against the agenda 'no one left behind' calls for research on 'the second decade'....
The dearth of data on adolescents highlighted in the UN's data disaggregation against the agenda 'no one left behind' calls for research on 'the second decade'. Moreover, India is a country with the world's largest adolescent population, and as such, studies and policies for developing competencies of adolescents are crucial to the country's development; interventions instilling confidence to aspire to a better future in underprivileged adolescents are vital to mitigate inequity. This intervention study adopted a quasi-experimental design to measure the effectiveness of social groupwork in raising the psychological well-being of adolescents in child sponsorship programs in Kerala. Forty adolescents from a Child Sponsorship Program (CSP) center in Kochi were recruited for the study. Those suggested by the CSP center considering their poor academic performance and behavior problems were allocated to the intervention group and the rest to the comparison group. The intervention was designed in response to the information garnered through a preliminary study and administered to the intervention group (n=20). We conducted pre-test and post-test for both the intervention group and comparison group (n=20). Comparison between pre- and post-measurements carried out using paired sample t-test for the intervention group and comparison group separately gave a p-value of <0.05 for the intervention group and >0.05 for the comparison group. Thus, it was proved that psychological well-being of participants in the intervention group was raised significantly due to the social group work intervention. Applying refined granularity, this research adds data specifically on adolescents enrolled in child sponsorship programs and sets a blueprint for social groupwork to improve their psychological well-being. Proposing a conceptual framework for child sponsorship programs, this study recommends further research in all aspects of its functioning, and interventions at group, family, and community levels, for the well-being and empowerment of marginalized adolescents.
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Health Services; Child; Female; Health Promotion; Humans; India; Male; Mental Health; Mental Health Services
PubMed: 34316362
DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.52532.1 -
Journal of Personality and Social... Oct 2020Evidence of group bias based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and language emerges early in the life span. Although understanding the initial acquisition of group bias...
Evidence of group bias based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and language emerges early in the life span. Although understanding the initial acquisition of group bias has critical theoretical and practical implications, precisely how group biases are acquired has been understudied. In two preregistered experiments, we tested the hypothesis that generalized social group biases can be acquired through exposure to positive nonverbal signals directed toward a novel adult from one group and more negative nonverbal signals directed toward a novel adult from another group. We sought to determine whether children would acquire global nonverbal signal-consistent social group biases that extended beyond their explicit social preferences, by measuring children's preferences, imitation, and behavioral intentions. Supporting our preregistered hypotheses, preschool-age participants favored small and large groups whose member received positive nonverbal signals, relative to groups whose member received more negative nonverbal signals. We also replicated prior work indicating that children will acquire individual target biases from the observation of biased nonverbal signals. Here we make the case that generalized social group biases can be rapidly and unintentionally transmitted on the basis of observational learning from nonverbal signals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Bias; Child; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Male; Nonverbal Communication; Prejudice; Social Behavior
PubMed: 31524429
DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000218 -
PloS One 2023Previous general super-resolution methods do not perform well in restoring the details structure information of face images. Prior and attribute-based face...
Previous general super-resolution methods do not perform well in restoring the details structure information of face images. Prior and attribute-based face super-resolution methods have improved performance with extra trained results. However, they need an additional network and extra training data are challenging to obtain. To address these issues, we propose a Multi-phase Attention Network (MPAN). Specifically, our proposed MPAN builds on integrated residual attention groups (IRAG) and a concatenated attention module (CAM). The IRAG consists of residual channel attention blocks (RCAB) and an integrated attention module (IAM). Meanwhile, we use IRAG to bootstrap the face structures. We utilize the CAM to concentrate on informative layers, hence improving the network's ability to reconstruct facial texture features. We use the IAM to focus on important positions and channels, which makes the network more effective at restoring key face structures like eyes and mouths. The above two attention modules form the multi-phase attention mechanism. Extensive experiments show that our MPAN has a significant competitive advantage over other state-of-the-art networks on various scale factors using various metrics, including PSNR and SSIM. Overall, our proposed Multi-phase Attention mechanism significantly improves the network for recovering face HR images without using additional information.
Topics: Social Group; Benchmarking; Eye; Mouth; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
PubMed: 36827299
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280986 -
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric... Jun 2024As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive,...
PURPOSE
As environmental disasters become more common and severe due to climate change, there is a growing need for strategies to bolster recovery that are proactive, cost-effective, and which mobilise community resources.
AIMS
We propose that building social group connections is a particularly promising strategy for supporting mental health in communities affected by environmental disasters.
METHODS
We tested the social identity model of identity change in a disaster context among 627 people substantially affected by the 2019-2020 Australian fires.
RESULTS
We found high levels of post-traumatic stress, strongly related to severity of disaster exposure, but also evidence of psychological resilience. Distress and resilience were weakly positively correlated. Having stronger social group connections pre-disaster was associated with less distress and more resilience 12-18 months after the disaster, via three pathways: greater social identification with the disaster-affected community, greater continuity of social group ties, and greater formation of new social group ties. New group ties were a mixed blessing, positively predicting both resilience and distress.
CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that investment in social resources is key to supporting mental health outcomes, not just reactively in the aftermath of disasters, but also proactively in communities most at risk.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Wildfires; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Resilience, Psychological; Australia; Mental Health; Middle Aged; Adult; Social Support; Social Identification; Disasters; Aged; Social Group
PubMed: 37428193
DOI: 10.1007/s00127-023-02519-8