Leadership solves collective action problems in small-scale societies

Observation of leadership in small-scale societies offers unique insights into the evolution of human collective action and the origins of sociopolitical complexity. Using behavioural data from the Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia and Nyangatom nomadic pastoralists of Ethiopia, we evaluate the traits of leaders and the contexts in which leadership becomes more institutional. We find that leaders tend to have more capital, in the form of age-related knowledge, body size or social connections. These attributes can reduce the costs leaders incur and increase the efficacy of leadership. Leadership becomes more institutional in domains of collective action, such as resolution of intragroup conflict, where collective action failure threatens group integrity. Together these data support the hypothesis that leadership is an important means by which collective action problems are overcome in small-scale societies.     

Biodiversity gains from efficient use of private sponsorship for flagship species conservation

To address the global extinction crisis, both efficient use of existing conservation funding and new sources of funding are vital. Private sponsorship of charismatic ‘flagship’ species conservation represents an important source of new funding, but has been criticized as being inefficient. However, the ancillary benefits of privately sponsored flagship species conservation via actions benefiting other species have not been quantified, nor have the benefits of incorporating such sponsorship into objective prioritization protocols. Here, we use a comprehensive dataset of conservation actions for the 700 most threatened species in New Zealand to examine the potential biodiversity gains from national private flagship species sponsorship programmes. We find that private funding for flagship species can clearly result in additional species and phylogenetic diversity conserved, via conservation actions shared with other species. When private flagship species funding is incorporated into a prioritization protocol to preferentially sponsor shared actions, expected gains can be more than doubled. However, these gains are consistently smaller than expected gains in a hypothetical scenario where private funding could be optimally allocated among all threatened species. We recommend integrating private sponsorship of flagship species into objective prioritization protocols to sponsor efficient actions that maximize biodiversity gains, or wherever possible, encouraging private donations for broader biodiversity goals.     

Organizational challenges to equity in the delivery of services within a new personalized risk-based approach to breast cancer screening

Emerging evidence opens new possibilities to improve current breast cancer mammography screening programs. One promising avenue is to tailor mammography screening according to individual risk. However, some factors could challenge the implementation of such approach, specifically its potential impact on the equitable delivery of services. This study aims to identify the barriers and facilitators to the equitable delivery of services within a future integration of a personalized approach in the Québec screening program. We then propose different means to address them. We conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders with a role in the management, implementation or assessment of the Québec screening program. The barriers and facilitators identified by respondents were regrouped in two themes: 1) Reproduction of social inequities, and 2) Amplification of regional disparities in access to services. We consider that fostering inclusion through communication strategies and relying on electronic communication technologies could help in addressing these issues.     

The institutional official and postapproval monitoring: the view from 10,000 feet

The role of the institutional official (IO) in ensuring a high-quality program of laboratory animal care and use has received relatively little attention in the literature compared to that of the institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) or attending veterinarian. Yet the IO is critical to institutional effectiveness. Often not a scientist, especially at colleges and universities, the IO is an executive who bears ultimate responsibility for the care and use of laboratory animals. An IO operates largely through delegation to the IACUC and the institutional veterinarian, yet must maintain a clear view of the program from the executive level--the "view from 10,000 feet." To do so, the IO must bring four critical leadership qualities to the position: (1) vision, (2) a commitment to quality and integrity, (3) strong planning and resource development, and (4) accountability to the laboratory animal program. The IO's ability to act on these qualities and to evaluate the effectiveness of the resulting program requires reliance on a strong program of postapproval monitoring (PAM). Summary data from PAM, based on metrics carefully defined by the IO in consultation with the IACUC and the institutional veterinarian, provide the feedback necessary to guide executive decisions and allow the IO to place the needs of the program of laboratory animal care and use successfully into the larger context of the mission of the institution.     

Development of an Undergraduate Bioinformatics Degree Program at a Liberal Arts College

The highly interdisciplinary field of bioinformatics has emerged as a powerful modern science. There has been a great demand for undergraduate- and graduate-level trained bioinformaticists in the industry as well in the academia. In order to address the needs for trained bioinformaticists, its curriculum must be offered at the undergraduate level, especially at four-year colleges, where a majority of the United States gets its education. There are many challenges in developing an undergraduate-level bioinformatics program that needs to be carefully designed as a well-integrated and cohesive interdisciplinary curriculum that prepares the students for a wide variety of career options. This article describes the challenges of establishing a highly interdisciplinary undergraduate major, the development of an undergraduate bioinformatics degree program at Ramapo College of New Jersey, and lessons learned in the last 10 years during its management.     

Autonomy and Leadership: Political Formations among the Ashéninka of Peruvian Amazonia

This article examines notions of hierarchy and leadership among Ashéninka people in Peruvian Amazonia. It considers the apparent disjunction between individuals' preference for a peaceful and autonomous everyday existence and the Ashéninka's renowned ability to form large-scale cooperative groups under powerful leaders. Responding to recent anthropological writings that recognise the variability of political forms both across and within Amazonian societies, the article focuses on the social and political preoccupations that can be seen to underlie both social forms among the Ashéninka. It argues that individuals believe that peaceful social reproduction is best achieved by acting independently and respecting the autonomy of others but that aggregation and differentiation remain an option in circumstances where individual action would be ineffectual. The article also examines how the Ashéninka use outsiders as effective organisers that also symbolise the problems of coercive power.     

Adaptive Co-Management and Grizzly Bear-Human Conflicts in Two Northern Canadian Aboriginal Communities

It has been postulated that the emergence of adaptive co-management can be driven by crises that transform social-ecological systems with low resilience. We compared two concurrent case studies of grizzly bear-human conflicts in northern Canada to assess whether such crises could effect such transformations in bear-human systems. We conclude that they can, evaluate the outcomes, and identify conditions that may explain these observations. For remote communities, horizontal and vertical institutional connections are important for facilitating learning and the integration of information in wildlife management, yet they can be difficult to establish. Events in Baker Lake, Nunavut, showed that without such connections local peoples’ substantial ecological knowledge may not be integrated effectively into decision processes. In the Inuvialuit Settlement Region the quota system for grizzly bear harvests has been able to successfully incorporate both scientific and traditional ecological knowledge, largely because of its cross-scale institutional network. The leadership provided by individual champions was also an important determinant of both case studies’ outcomes.     

Chance Favors the Prepared Mind - From Serendipity to Rational Drug Design

Abstract

Accidental discoveries always played an important role in science, especially in the search for new drugs. Several examples of serendipitous findings, leading to therapeutically useful drugs, are presented and discussed. Captopril, an antihypertensive Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, was the first drug that could be derived from a structural model of a protein. Dorzolamide, a Carboanhydrase inhibitor for the treatment of glaucoma, and the HIV protease inhibitors Saquinavir, Indinavir, Ritonavir, and Nelfinavir are further examples of therapeutically used drugs from structure-based design. More enzyme inhibitors, e.g. the anti-influenza drugs Zanamivir and GS 4104, are in clinical development. In the absence of a protein 3D structure, the 3D structures of certain ligands may be used for rational design. This approach is exemplified by the design of specifically acting integrin receptor antagonists. In the last years, combinatorial and computational approaches became important methods for rational drug design. SAR by NMR searches for low-affinity ligands that bind to proximal subsites of an enzyme; linkage with an appropriate tether produces nanomolar inhibitors. The de novo design program LUDI and the docking program FlexX are tools for the computer-aided design of protein ligands. Work is in progress to combine such approaches to strategies for combinatorial drug design.

Dans les champs de l'obsérvation le hasard ne favorise que les ésprits préparés. Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)     

How Did Institut Pasteur’s NGS Core Facility,Biomics, Manage the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Crisis?

In 2020, research entities at the Institut Pasteur (IP) in Paris, as elsewhere around the world, were closed because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, IP core facilities, laboratories, services, and departments working on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and priority projects were authorized to continue working both on site and remotely. Given the importance of its role in SARS-CoV-2 genome-sequencing initiatives, the IP Biomics core facility was fully functional during the first (i.e., March–June 2020) and second (i.e., November–December 2020) national lockdowns. We describe here how Biomics successfully implemented an emergency management plan to deal with this health crisis. We highlight the internal deployment of the institutional business continuity plan (BCP) through a series of actions. We also address the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Biomics staff and collaborators. The added value of quality management and the limitations of risk management systems are discussed. Finally, we suggest that the Biomics infrastructure and the BCP described here could be used for benchmarking purposes, for other next-generation sequencing core facilities wishing to implement/improve their processes, and for future major crisis management.     

Leadership and innovation. How consensus management blocks genuine innovation

The consensual basis for selecting research topics works for incremental innovation, but is the enemy of radical breakthroughs. Consensual processes, from the ‘European Year of Creativity and Innovation’ to peer review, should be supplemented by the leadership of those with the courage to back the extremes. Such leadership requires support from the very top of scientific management and funding, in academia and industry.     

Impact of Risk-Based Corrective Action (RBCA) on State LUST Corrective Action Programs

Under sponsorship from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the American Society of Testing & Materials (ASTM), a nationwide study evaluated the impact of risk-based corrective action (RBCA) on the performance of state environmental cleanup programs. The RBCA process for management of affected soil and groundwater sites was originally detailed in ASTM Standard E-1 739-95, Standard Guidelines for Risk-Based Corrective Action at Petroleum Release Sites, published in 1995 and reissued in expanded form in 1998. With strong support from the USEPA, the RBCA process has been adopted by many state agencies in the U.S in an effort to improve the management of environmental cleanup efforts, as needed to address increasing case backlogs and rising costs associated with remediation of leaking underground storage tank sites. To evaluate the success of these RBCA programs, the Risk-Based Decision-Making (RBDM) Performance Assessment Study, initiated in 1997, involved detailed evaluation of five state environmental agencies that had implemented regulatory programs closely modeled on the ASTM RBCA Standard. Comparison of pre-RBCA to post-RBCA program management statistics clearly demonstrates the positive impact of RBCA in terms of faster case processing rates, reduced environmental cleanup costs, and more effective targeting of resources toward higher-risk sites.     

Time for a change: addressing R&D and commercialization challenges for antibacterials

The antibacterial therapeutic area has been described as the perfect storm. Resistance is increasing to the point that our hospitals encounter patients infected with untreatable pathogens, the overall industry pipeline is described as dry and most multinational pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from the area. Major contributing factors to the declining antibacterial industry pipeline include scientific challenges, clinical/regulatory hurdles and low return on investment. This paper examines these challenges and proposes approaches to address them. There is a need for a broader scientific agenda to explore new approaches to discover and develop antibacterial agents. Additionally, ideas of how industry and academia could be better integrated will be presented. While promising progress in the regulatory environment has been made, more streamlined regulatory paths are still required and the solutions will lie in global harmonization and clearly defined guidance. Creating the right incentives for antibacterial research and development is critical and a new commercial model for antibacterial agents will be proposed. One key solution to help resolve both the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and lack of new drug development are rapid, cost-effective, accurate point of care diagnostics that will transform antibacterial prescribing and enable more cost-effective and efficient antibacterial clinical trials. The challenges of AMR are too great for any one group to resolve and success will require leadership and partnerships among academia, industry and governments globally.     

The burden of service for faculty of color to achieve diversity and inclusion: the minority tax

The exclusion of Blacks/African-Americans, Latinx/Hispanics, and Indigenous people from science has resulted in their underrepresentation in the biomedical workforce, especially in academia. Faculty diversity at academic institutions is unacceptably low (<6%) and has remained unchanged in the past 20 years. Despite low representation, faculty of color are disproportionately tasked with service to enhance diversity and inclusion of the academy, often to the detriment of their research and academic success. This essay offers a perspective on the undue burden of service placed on underrepresented faculty to achieve institutional diversity and inclusion. I reflect on the challenges that faculty of color face trying to maintain a competitive research program while serving the needs of the academy, often in a capacity greater than that of their well-represented peers. I also discuss opportunities for faculty of color to leverage related diversity and inclusion work to boost their career progression and academic advancement.

JoAnn Trejo     

L’indéterminisme de l’automatisme mental dans sa relation au hasard et à la contingence dans l’histoire de la psychiatrie

This article questions the epistemic relationships of causal indeterminism in de Clérambault’s automatisme mental and Janet’s psychological automatism, including the concept of chance (tychè & automaton) as it evolved from Aristotlés Physics to the works of Cournot in the 19th century. De Clérambault conceived mental automatism as a causal anideism, enabling him to regard the self-organized morphogenesis of hallucinatory psychotic delusions from initial conditions, which express the apparent properties of fortuity, arbitrariness, and contingency. Janet refutes the postulate of the anideism of mental automatism in favour of a disorder in the regulation of action caused by specific feelings, and Ey envisions an accident in a hypothetical body plan based on a teleological explanation that is organ-based but not mechanical. These doctrines, however, support an objectivistic and naturalistic point of view regarding the apparent indeterminism of the thought automaton. They must not ignore the subject’s intrinsic perspective, which operates on the order of the tyché and makes it possible to analyze mental automatism, such as the subject’s refusal to recognize the possibility that a part of contingency and intentional indeterminism can emerge spontaneously in the course of thought and its inner language, and that this spontaneity could be the result of an unconscious choice.     

The Possible Role of Resource Requirements and Academic Career-Choice Risk on Gender Differences in Publication Rate and Impact

Many studies demonstrate that there is still a significant gender bias, especially at higher career levels, in many areas including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We investigated field-dependent, gender-specific effects of the selective pressures individuals experience as they pursue a career in academia within seven STEM disciplines. We built a unique database that comprises 437,787 publications authored by 4,292 faculty members at top United States research universities. Our analyses reveal that gender differences in publication rate and impact are discipline-specific. Our results also support two hypotheses. First, the widely-reported lower publication rates of female faculty are correlated with the amount of research resources typically needed in the discipline considered, and thus may be explained by the lower level of institutional support historically received by females. Second, in disciplines where pursuing an academic position incurs greater career risk, female faculty tend to have a greater fraction of higher impact publications than males. Our findings have significant, field-specific, policy implications for achieving diversity at the faculty level within the STEM disciplines.     

Regional collection planning for speciose taxonomic groups

Regional collection planning and implementation are essential if professional zoological parks and aquariums are to achieve their collective conservation and animal management goals. Several regional associations currently have taxon advisory groups (TAGs) in place whose primary role is to develop taxon‐specific collection plans. During their planning process, TAGs review all known taxa of interest and evaluate them based on relevant criteria. TAGs also evaluate the total amount of captive space available to determine the number of priority taxa that can be maintained. In addition, some TAGs heighten their impact on conservation by producing an action plan of select conservation and research projects to be supported by participating institutions. Although current guidelines for regional collection plan (RCP) development are extremely useful for some TAGs, such as those for most mammalian taxa, they do not address the needs of other more speciose TAGs, such as those for fish, invertebrates, and amphibians. These TAGs, characterized by their numerous taxa and more flexible space requirements, still need to develop plans for the species they manage. We recommend that highly speciose TAGs make development of an action plan their highest priority and use it to direct the RCP process. This will limit the number of taxa they need to consider, while ensuring that their RCPs are directly relevant to conservation. Once their action plans have been developed, speciose TAGs can then determine which species are most important to zoological collections and at what level they should be managed. This strategy represents a departure from the current processes used to develop RCPs for many mammalian and avian species and, as such, has not yet been addressed. An action plan‐driven approach will result in more practical and relevant planning for speciose TAGs. Zoo Biol 21:313–320, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Evaluation of a leadership program for First Nations,Métis,and Inuit Youth: Stories of positive youth development and community engagement

First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) youth experience many health disparities in comparison with their mainstream Canadian peers. Researchers have recommended that interventions developed to enhance health and well-being for FNMI youth apply a strengths-based approach that acknowledges contextual challenges. This article uses a qualitative approach to examine the perceived impacts of a program designed to enhance positive development and leadership in FNMI youth. Semistructured interviews were conducted with front-line staff and participants. A thematic data analysis resulted in three major themes that describe the perceived program effects at the participant, staff, and community levels. Findings are discussed in relation to current research and theory, and recommendations are provided for programming and future research. Leadership programming for FNMI youth may be an effective way to promote development across many levels of stakeholders.     

Implementing a voluntary,nonregulatory approach to nitrogen management in Tampa Bay,FL: a public/private partnership

Participants in the Tampa Bay Estuary Program have agreed to adopt nitrogen-loading targets for Tampa Bay based on the water-quality and related light requirements of underwater seagrasses. Based on modeling results, it appears that light levels can be maintained at necessary levels by "holding the line" at existing nitrogen loadings; however, this goal may be difficult to achieve given the 20% increase in the watershed"s human population and associated 7% increase in nitrogen loading that are projected to occur over the next 20 years. To address the long-term management of nitrogen sources, a nitrogen management consortium of local electric utilities, industries, and agricultural interests, as well as local governments and regulatory agency representatives, has developed a consortium action plan to address the target load reduction needed to "hold the line" at 1992 to 1994 levels. To date, implemented and planned projects collated in the Consortium Action Plan meet and exceed the agreed-upon nitrogen-loading reduction goal. An example of the success of the private partnership aspect of this program can be seen in three phosphate fertilizer mining and manufacturing companies with facilities located on Tampa Bay. These companies are participants in the Estuary Program and the Nitrogen Management Consortium to provide support and input for a program that advocates voluntary, nonregulatory cooperation to reach environmental goals.