Teaching varies with task complexity in wild chimpanzees

Understanding social influences on how apes acquire tool behaviors can help us model the evolution of culture and technology in humans. Humans scaffold novice tool skills with diverse strategies, including the transfer of tools between individuals. Chimpanzees transfer tools, and this behavior meets criteria for teaching. However, it is unclear how task complexity relates to this form of helping. Here, we find differences between 2 wild chimpanzee populations in rate, probability, and types of tool transfer during termite gathering. Chimpanzees showed greater helping in the population where termite gathering is a more complex tool task. In wild chimpanzees, as in humans, regular and active provisioning of learning opportunities may be essential to the cultural transmission of complex skills.Cumulative culture is a transformative force in human evolution, but the social underpinnings of this capacity are debated. Identifying social influences on how chimpanzees acquire tool tasks of differing complexity may help illuminate the evolutionary origins of technology in our own lineage. Humans routinely transfer tools to novices to scaffold their skill development. While tool transfers occur in wild chimpanzees and fulfill criteria for teaching, it is unknown whether this form of helping varies between populations and across tasks. Applying standardized methods, we compared tool transfers during termite gathering by chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo, and in Gombe, Tanzania. At Goualougo, chimpanzees use multiple, different tool types sequentially, choose specific raw materials, and perform modifications that improve tool efficiency, which could make it challenging for novices to manufacture suitable tools. Termite gathering at Gombe involves a single tool type, fishing probes, which can be manufactured from various materials. Multiple measures indicated population differences in tool-transfer behavior. The rate of transfers and probability of transfer upon request were significantly higher at Goualougo, while resistance to transfers was significantly higher at Gombe. Active transfers of tools in which possessors moved to facilitate possession change upon request occurred only at Goualougo, where they were the most common transfer type. At Gombe, tool requests were typically refused. We suggest that these population differences in tool-transfer behavior may relate to task complexity and that active helping plays an enhanced role in the cultural transmission of complex technology in wild apes

Organizational Culture and Network Embeddedness

A question that has been neglected in network research is where differences in network embeddedness come from.The network literature reveals that there are three key characteristics of embedded relationships: trust, open communication, and joint problem solving.On the basis of the sparse empirical studies of factors leading to network embeddedness, we identify organizational culture as a potentially important organizational-level factor.Building on empirical organizational culture studies we select ten dimensions of organizational culture that for theoretical and/or empirical reasons can be linked to network embeddedness, and formulate propositions concerning their effects.corporate culture;networks

Corporate responsibility and financial performance : the role of intangible resources.

This paper examines the effects of a firm’s intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm’s intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries.

Crafting A Human Resource Strategy To Foster Organizational Agility: A Case Study

A decade ago, the CEO of Albert Einstein Healthcare Network (AEHN), anticipating a tumultuous and largely unpredictable period in its industry, undertook to convert this organization from one that was basically stable and complacent to one that was agile, “nimble, and change-hardy”. This case study briefly addresses AEHN’s approaches to business strategy and organization design, but focuses primarily on the human resource strategy that emerged over time to foster the successful attainment of organizational agility. Although exploratory, the study suggests a number of lessons for those who are, or will be, studying or trying to create and sustain this promising new organizational paradigm

Comparative analysis of spring flood risk reduction measures in Alaska, United States and the Sakha Republic, Russia

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017River ice thaw and breakup are an annual springtime phenomena in the North. Depending on regional weather patterns and river morphology, breakups can result in catastrophic floods in exposed and vulnerable communities. Breakup flood risk is especially high in rural and remote northern communities, where flood relief and recovery are complicated by unique geographical and climatological features, and limited physical and communication infrastructure. Proactive spring flood management would significantly minimize the adverse impacts of spring floods. Proactive flood management entails flood risk reduction through advances in ice jam and flood prevention, forecasting and mitigation, and community preparedness. With the goal to identify best practices in spring flood risk reduction, I conducted a comparative case study between two flood-prone communities, Galena in Alaska, United States and Edeytsy in the Sakha Republic, Russia. Within a week from each other, Galena and Edeytsy sustained major floods in May 2013. Methods included focus groups with the representatives from flood managing agencies, surveys of families impacted by the 2013 floods, observations on site, and archival review. Comparative parameters of the study included natural and human causes of spring floods, effectiveness of spring flood mitigation and preparedness strategies, and the role of interagency communication and cooperation in flood risk reduction. The analysis revealed that spring flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy results from complex interactions among a series of natural processes and human actions that generate conditions of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Therefore, flood risk in Galena and Edeytsy can be reduced by managing conditions of ice-jam floods, and decreasing exposure and vulnerability of the at-risk populations. Implementing the Pressure and Release model to analyze the vulnerability progression of Edeytsy and Galena points to common root causes at the two research sites, including colonial heritage, unequal distribution of resources and power, top-down governance, and limited inclusion of local communities in the decision-making process. To construct an appropriate flood risk reduction framework it is important to establish a dialogue among the diverse stakeholders on potential solutions, arriving at a range of top-down and bottom-up initiatives and in conjunction selecting the appropriate strategies. Both communities have progressed in terms of greater awareness of the hazard, reduction in vulnerabilities, and a shift to more reliance on shelter-in-place. However, in neither community have needed improvements in levee protection been completed. Dialogue between outside authorities and the community begins earlier and is more intensive for Edeytsy, perhaps accounting for Edeytsy's more favorable rating of risk management and response than Galena's

Strategic Pest Management Booklets for Farmers in Kaffrine, Senegal

abstract: When Kaffrine, Senegal, is faced with the threat of a locust plague, farmers tend to struggle with determining what actions and when they should take place to prevent a plague from occurring. The inability of farmers to readily identify the early threats of a locust plague is a primary issue that has been affecting communities in Kaffrine for millennia. Locust plagues affect the functionality of Senegal’s ecosystems, the welfare of its social systems, and the peoples’ economic opportunities. The project focuses on the creation of 300 pest identification booklets that provide five villages in Kaffrine the proper education to prevent locust plagues from forming. I have partnered with the Global Locust Initiative (GLI) to help make these booklets come to fruition as the booklets target the lack of early detection awareness that is at the root of locust plagues. By providing the villages with these booklets, the farmers and community members, will be more educated on how to identify and act on the early threats of a plague. Additional outcomes of creating these booklets are as follows: improved well-being of the farming community, increased millet yields, and enhanced global food system sustainability. As locusts are a migratory pest, it is recommended that more stakeholders are provided the proper educational material to help them identify the early threats of a locust plague to prevent negative externalities from being imposed on the surrounding ecology, individuals, and agriculture