A generalized transition model for grouped longitudinal categorical data

Transition models are an important framework that can be used to model longitudinal categorical data. They are particularly useful when the primary interest is in prediction. The available methods for this class of models are suitable for the cases in which responses are recorded individually over time. However, in many areas, it is common for categorical data to be recorded as groups, that is, different categories with a number of individuals in each. As motivation we consider a study in insect movement and another in pig behaviou. The first study was developed to understand the movement patterns of female adults of Diaphorina citri, a pest of citrus plantations. The second study investigated how hogs behaved under the influence of environmental enrichment. In both studies, the number of individuals in different response categories was observed over time. We propose a new framework for considering the time dependence in the linear predictor of a generalized logit transition model using a quantitative response, corresponding to the number of individuals in each category. We use maximum likelihood estimation and present the results of the fitted models under stationarity and non-stationarity assumptions, and use recently proposed tests to assess non-stationarity. We evaluated the performance of the proposed model using simulation studies under different scenarios, and concluded that our modeling framework represents a flexible alternative to analyze grouped longitudinal categorical data.     

Christian nationalism and white racial boundaries: examining whites' opposition to interracial marriage

How does the convergence of national and religious identities potentially fortify white racial boundaries in the USA? Focusing on openness to racial exogamy as an indicator of racial boundaries, we examine the link between Christian nationalism and white Americans' views towards their hypothetical daughter marrying an African American, Latino, or Asian. Drawing on insights from social identity complexity theory, we argue that the convergence of religious and national identities serves to reinforce in-group boundaries, thereby fortifying notions of white purity, and consequently, strengthening whites' discomfort with potential race-mixing in marriage. Multivariate analyses of national survey data demonstrate that Christian nationalism is strongly associated with an increase in white Americans' discomfort with a daughter marrying any racial minority, and particularly African Americans. We demonstrate how the convergence of religious and national identities in Christian nationalism influences whites' regulating of racial boundaries (evidenced in intermarriage attitudes) above and beyond the independent effects of political conservatism or religious exclusivism.     

民族植物学—社会及文化价值初探

简要介绍民族植物学的性质、研究现况及其在经济、生态、环境和学术上的应用情况。民族植物学的社会价值通过其在增强民族自信心、伦理学和知识产权等方面的作用得以论证。民族植物学的文化价值具体而生动,体现于种种直接的植物文化现象（如植物礼仪文化、食花文化、树叶信、草药文化等）和宗教行为（如植物图腾、树神崇拜、神林崇拜等）。通过对民族植物学的经济、生态价值和社会、文化价值的分析,作者相信,民族植物学对于文化多样性和生物多样性的保护将起到积极的作用。     

Seasonal habitat selection and space use by a semi‐free range herbivore in a heterogeneous savanna landscape

Understanding factors that influence habitat selection in heterogeneous landscapes is fundamental for establishing realistic models on animal distribution to inform rangeland management. In this study, we tested whether seasonal variation in habitat selection within the home range of a large herbivore was influenced by constraints such as, distances from water and central place using semi‐free range cattle (Bos taurus) as a case study. We also tested whether shifts in space use over time were dependent on spatial scale and on the overall abundance of resources. We predicted that distance from water significantly influenced dry season habitat selection while the influence of the central place on habitat selection was season‐independent. We also predicted that shifts in space use over time were spatial scale‐dependent, and that large herbivores would include more diverse habitats in their home ranges during the dry season, when water and food resources are less abundant. Multinomial logit models were used to construct habitat selection models with distances from water and central place as habitat‐specific constraints. Results showed significant variations in habitat selection between the dry and wet season. As predicted, the effect of distance from central place was season‐independent, while the effect of water was not included in the top dry season models contrary to expectation. A diverse range of habitats were also selected during the dry season including agricultural fields. Results also indicated that shifts in space use were spatial scale dependent, with core areas being more sensitive to changes than the home range. In addition, shifts in space use responded to temporal changes in habitat composition. Overall, our results suggest that semi‐free range herbivores adopt different foraging strategies in response to spatial‐temporal changes in habitat availability.     

莲的民族植物学—经济与植物文化价值

从民族植物学的角度考察汉语中关于莲（ＮｅｌｕｍｂｏｎｕｃｉｆｅｒａＧａｅｒｔｎ．）的语汇,介绍莲的民间应用。并着重从俗文化、佛教文化和儒文化三方面分析莲的文化价值。莲的植物文化应与上古植物崇拜有关,佛教首先赋予莲以清静纯洁的象征意义,随着佛教的传播和汉化而被儒家吸收,并影响到俗文化。莲的植物文化价值取向的变迁与中国文化源流的大背景密切相关。     

Covariate and multinomial: Accounting for distance in movement in capture–recapture analyses

Many biological quantities cannot be measured directly but rather need to be estimated from models. Estimates from models are statistical objects with variance and, when derived simultaneously, covariance. It is well known that their variance–covariance (VC) matrix must be considered in subsequent analyses. Although it is always preferable to carry out the proposed analyses on the raw data themselves, a two‐step approach cannot always be avoided. This situation arises when the parameters of a multinomial must be regressed against a covariate. The Delta method is an appropriate and frequently recommended way of deriving variance approximations of transformed and correlated variables. Implementing the Delta method is not trivial, and there is a lack of a detailed information on the procedure in the literature for complex situations such as those involved in constraining the parameters of a multinomial distribution. This paper proposes a how‐to guide for calculating the correct VC matrices of dependant estimates involved in multinomial distributions and how to use them for testing the effects of covariates in post hoc analyses when the integration of these analyses directly into a model is not possible. For illustrative purpose, we focus on variables calculated in capture–recapture models, but the same procedure can be applied to all analyses dealing with correlated estimates with multinomial distribution and their variances and covariances.     

Patterns of intra- and interspecific association in leaf-mining insects on three oak host species

Abstract. 1. We determined mortality and distributional patterns of leaf miners on three oak host species (Quercus falcata, Q.nigra and Q.hemisphaerica) in northern Florida, U.S.A.
2. Patterns of intra- and interspecific occurrence within leaves, and mortality of five most abundant leaf miner species were analysed as a test of competition.
3. Miners co-occurred on leaves more often that expected by chance (P<0.05) in six of ten possible species combinations and log-linear model analysis showed no negative higher-order interactions.
4. All five miner species had highly clumped distributions between leaves (P<0.01).
5. Leaf miner survival was less than expected for four of five species when co-occurring on leaves with conspecifics than when mining with heterospecifics or alone (P<0.05).
6. We conclude that interspecific competition is unapparent within this leaf miner guild and that intraspecific competition occurs in four of the five major leaf miner species. We discuss leaf miner selection of common leaves, perhaps based on chemical/physical leaf characters, as a cause of intra- and interspecific aggregation.     

Genes,genomes and identity. Projections on matter

This paper aims to show that references to genes and genomes are counterproductive in legal and political understandings of what it is to be human and a unique individual. To support this claim, I will give a brief overview of the many incompatible meanings the term ‘identity’ has gathered in reference to genes or genome in the contexts of biology and family ancestry, personal identity, species identity. One finds various and incompatible understandings of these expressions. While genetics is usually considered to deliver definitive knowledge about history and the future, genomics seems to work with more complicated relations between DNA, inheritance and phenotype. In genomics, ‘identity’ is no longer about identification and status markers but about individualization. Regulatory and legal documents project from traits to genomes, implying that the individuality is at least represented, if not created, in a unique genome. Boundaries between humans and other animals, between different ‘kinds’ of humans, and between all individual humans are re‐established via reference to the chemical matter of DNA. My analysis will show how this trend is a reactionary response to modern understandings of identities as social products and that it ignores new biomedical understandings of human bodies.     

Gibberellic acid biosynthesis from whey and simulation of cultural parameters

This article examines the potential of lactose from whey permeate as a substrate for gibberellic acid production. In addition, the paper reports the derivation of mathematical models which simulate the various fermentation conditions to predict precise values. Of the five Fusarium moniliforme isolates screened for their ability to synthesize the gibberellic acid, F. moniliforme-1 proved to be the best strain (670 mg gibberellic acid/l) when fermentation was carried out at 28°C for 12 days. The product started to accumulate at the end of maximum growth phase (day 9) and continued until the curve reached a plateau (day 12). From the observed data and expected values, a temperature range of 27–30°C, pH range of 3.5–5.5 and an inoculum level of 10–12.5% (v/v) were considered optimal for attaining the highest product yield. However, nitrogen sources supplemented in whey permeate medium suppressed the ability of the culture under study to synthesize metabolite and utilize lactose.     

Surgery and national identity in late nineteenth-century Vienna

For historians of medicine, the professor Theodor Billroth of the University of Vienna was the leading European surgeon of the late nineteenth century and the personification of intervention by organ or body part removal. For social and political historians, he was a German nationalist whose book on medical education heralded the rise of anti-Semitism in the Austrian public sphere. This article brings together and critically reassesses these two hitherto separate accounts to show how, in a period of dramatic social and political change, Viennese surgery split into two camps. One, headed by Billroth, was characterized by an alliance with the German educational model, German nationalism leading to racial anti-Semitism and an experimental approach to the construction of surgical procedure, which heavily relied on the methods of pathological physiology. The other, which followed a long Austrian tradition, stood for a clinically oriented and strictly organized medical education that catered to an ethnically and socially diverse population and, simultaneously, for an anatomically oriented surgery, largely of the locomotor apparatus. This study shows how, in a major centre of medical education and capital of a multiethnic empire, surgical and national identities were forged together.     

Review. Theoretical and empirical evidence for the impact of inductive biases on cultural evolution

The question of how much the outcomes of cultural evolution are shaped by the cognitive capacities of human learners has been explored in several disciplines, including psychology, anthropology and linguistics. We address this question through a detailed investigation of transmission chains, in which each person passes information to another along a chain. We review mathematical and empirical evidence that shows that under general conditions, and across experimental paradigms, the information passed along transmission chains will be affected by the inductive biases of the people involved-the constraints on learning and memory, which influence conclusions from limited data. The mathematical analysis considers the case where each person is a rational Bayesian agent. The empirical work consists of behavioural experiments in which human participants are shown to operate in the manner predicted by the Bayesian framework. Specifically, in situations in which each person's response is used to determine the data seen by the next person, people converge on concepts consistent with their inductive biases irrespective of the information seen by the first member of the chain. We then relate the Bayesian analysis of transmission chains to models of biological evolution, clarifying how chains of individuals correspond to population-level models and how selective forces can be incorporated into our models. Taken together, these results indicate how laboratory studies of transmission chains can provide information about the dynamics of cultural evolution and illustrate that inductive biases can have a significant impact on these dynamics.     

Responses of potato cultivars to the common scab pathogens, Streptomyces scabies and S. turgidiscabies

A glasshouse experiment was conducted to study the responses to Streptomyces scabies and S. turgidiscabies in potato cultivars Bellona, Matilda and Sabina (Solanum tuberosum). Potatoes were grown in a peat‐sand mixture inoculated with one of the two strains of either S. scabies or S. turgidiscabies. Logit models were used to analyse the data on disease incidence and severity, whereas the data on emergence and yield were tested by analysis of variance. S. turgidiscabies, a recently described potato pathogen in Finland, possessed a high ability to cause superficial, raised and pitted lesions on all three cultivars tested. Symptoms induced by S. turgidiscabies were similar to those of S. scabies, regardless of the cultivar, which suggests that the two causal organisms of common scab cannot be distinguished based on symptoms. Infection by S. turgidiscabies and S. scabies delayed emergence, had the tendency to decrease the yield, and increased the proportion of small tubers in the yield, regardless of the potato cultivar. Differences in the levels of resistance to common scab were evident between potato cultivars, since cvs. Matilda and Bellona showed higher disease incidence and more severe scab symptoms than cv. Sabina.     

Diversity and family: an inquiry into the effects of ethnic,linguistic, and religious fractionalization on family values

This article focuses on the connection between three forms of diversity – religious, ethnic, and linguistic – and family values. The article builds on the idea that diversity challenges social identity and people react by returning to traditional family values in order to protect their social identity and the in-group culture. The paper aims at contributing to the sociological debate about the effect of diversity on social life and investigates how different types of diversity connect with traditional family values because individuals want to protect their in-group culture that is mainly transmitted within family. The paper tests the research hypotheses employing multilevel regression models and using data from the ISSP IV from 2012. Religious diversity associates with traditional attitudes regarding marriage and gender roles, ethnic diversity goes together with lower support for marriage, but has no connection with attitudes towards gender role, while linguistic diversity is not associated with attitudes family values.     

Transitive inference in pigeons: measuring the associative values of Stimuli B and D

Several reinforcement-based models have been proposed to explain transitive-like behavior in nonverbal transitive inference tasks. These models assume that the initial training required for memorizing the premises produces an ordered series of associative values (A>B>C>D>E); these values can then be used to select the "transitively correct" stimulus in a novel pair (e.g., BD). Our study experimentally tested this assumption by using resistance-to-extinction and resistance-to-reinforcement techniques to obtain empirical measures of associative strength for Stimuli B and D. We first measured the associative strengths of these stimuli after completion of initial training with overlapping pairs of colored squares (A+B-, B+C-, C+D-, and D+E-) using resistance-to-extinction and resistance-to-reinforcement procedures. Next, we used massed presentations of Pair D+E- (termed bias reversal) that ought to increase the associative value of Stimulus D, and again measured the associative strengths of the stimuli. None of our experimental measures of associative strength correlated with pigeons' behavior in the BD test or with BD performance predicted by associative models either before or after bias reversal (Wynne, 1995; Siemann and Delius, 1998). These results question validity of reinforcement-based models for explaining animals' behavior in nonverbal TI tasks.     

The dynamics of plant disease models with continuous and impulsive cultural control strategies

Plant disease mathematical models including continuous cultural control strategy and impulsive cultural control strategy are proposed and investigated. This novel theoretical framework could result in an objective criterion on how to control plant disease transmission by replanting of healthy plants and removal of infected plants. Firstly, continuous replanting of healthy plants and removing of infected plants is taken. The existence and stability of disease-free equilibrium and positive equilibrium are studied and continuous cultural control strategy is given. Secondly, plant disease model with impulsive replanting of healthy plants and removing of infected plants is also considered. Using Floquet's theorem and small amplitude perturbation, the sufficient conditions under which the infected plant free periodic solution is locally stable are obtained. Moreover, permanence of the system is investigated. Under certain parameter spaces, it is shown that a nontrivial periodic solution emerges via a supercritical bifurcation. Finally, our findings are confirmed by means of numerical simulations. The modeling methods and analytical analysis presented can serve as an integrating measure to identify and design appropriate plant disease control strategies.     

Visual immersion for cultural understanding and multimodal literacy

ABSTRACT

When considering inclusive art curriculum that accommodates all learners, including English language learners, two distinct yet inseparable issues come to mind. The first is that English language learner students can use visual language and visual literacy skills inherent in visual arts curriculum to scaffold learning in and through the arts. Second, in facilitating a sense of belonging for students whose home language and cultural aesthetic may be different from those of the dominant school culture, an authentically developed multicultural art curriculum can guide self-efficacy and inclusiveness. Both aspects of teaching art for English language learners can have the added benefits of facilitating collaborative learning opportunities and increasing worldviews for all students.     

Ecological optima and tolerances of Thelypteris limbosperma,Athyrium distentifolium,and Matteuccia struthiopteris along environmental gradients in Western Norway

The distribution and abundance of Thelypteris limbosperma, Athyrium distentifolium, and Matteuccia struthiopteris are modelled statistically in relation to 14 environmental variables along the major climatic, topographic, and edaphic gradients in western Norway. The data are from 624 stands from which measurements or estimates of mean January and mean July temperatures, humidity, altitude, aspect, and slope are available. From 182 of these stands eight soil variables have also been measured. The species responses are quantified by two numerical methods: Gaussian logit regression and weighted averaging (WA) regression. The estimated WA optima suggest that A. distentifolium has an ecological preference for low July and January temperatures, high altitudes, and soils of low-medium pH and base content. The species shows statistically significant Gaussian responses with summer temperature, humidity (= Martonnes humidity index), altitude, slope, aspect, pH, cation exchange capacity, and base saturation with optima of 8.7 °C, 188.9, 1220 m, 28°, 29°, 4.8, 13.77 mEq 100 g dry soil^-1, and 13.4%, respectively. These suggest that the occurrence and relative abundance of A. distentifolium are well predicted by summer temperature, topography, and soil pH and base status. T. limbosperma has WA optima that suggest that it favours moderately high winter and summer temperatures, high humidity, medium altitude, and soils of low pH and base content. It has significant Gaussian responses to summer temperature (optimum =12.6 °C), winter temperature (-1.8 °C), humidity (179.2), altitude (459.5 m), slope (22.5°), and Na (0.7 mg 100 g dry soil^-1). These suggest that climatic factors, altitude, and slope are significant predictors for its occurrence and abundance. M. struthiopteris has high WA optima for summer temperature, pH, Ca, Mg, K, Na, cation exchange capacity (CEC), and base saturation, and a low optima for humidity and winter temperature. Of these, summer temperature (16.0 °C), Ca (63.1 mg 100 g dry soil^-1), Mg (41.0 mg 100 g dry soil^-1), K (23.6 mg 100 g dry soil^-1), Na (5.0 mg 100 g dry soil^-1), CEC (60.7 mEq 100 g dry soil^-1), and base saturation (56.3%) have significant Gaussian logit responses, as do aspect (150.2°) and loss-on-ignition (9.4%). These results suggest that the occurrence and relative abundance of M. struthiopteris are well predicted by high soil base cations, a generally southern aspect, low organic content in the soil, and high July temperatures.