Is Evolution of Blind Mole Rats Determined by Climate Oscillations?

The concept of climate variability facilitating adaptive radiation supported by the ‘‘Court Jester’’ hypothesis is disputed by the ‘‘Red Queen’’ one, but the prevalence of one or the other might be scale-dependent. We report on a detailed, comprehensive phylo-geographic study on the ,4 kb mtDNA sequence in underground blind mole rats of the family Spalacidae (or subfamily Spalacinae) from the East Mediterranean steppes. Our study aimed at testing the presence of periodicities in branching patterns on a constructed phylogenetic tree and at searching for congruence between branching events, tectonic history and paleoclimates. In contrast to the strong support for the majority of the branching events on the tree, the absence of support in a few instances indicates that network-like evolution could exist in spalacids. In our tree, robust support was given, in concordance with paleontological data, for the separation of spalacids from muroid rodents during the first half of the Miocene when open, grass-dominated habitats were established. Marine barriers formed between Anatolia and the Balkans could have facilitated the separation of the lineage ‘‘Spalax’’ from the lineage ‘‘Nannospalax’’ and of the clade ‘‘leucodon’’ from the clade ‘‘xanthodon’’. The separation of the clade ‘‘ehrenbergi’’ occurred during the late stages of the tectonically induced uplift of the Anatolian high plateaus and mountains, whereas the separation of the clade ‘‘vasvarii’’ took place when the rapidly uplifting Taurus mountain range prevented the Mediterranean rainfalls from reaching the Central Anatolian Plateau. The separation of Spalax antiquus and S. graecus occurred when the southeastern Carpathians were uplifted. Despite the role played by tectonic events, branching events that show periodicity corresponding to 400-kyr and 100-kyr eccentricity bands illuminate the important role of orbital fluctuations on adaptive radiation in spalacids. At the given scale, our results supports the ‘‘Court Jester’’ hypothesis over the ‘‘Red Queen’’ one

Agile software engineering practices and ERP implementation with focus on SAP activate methodology

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Facilitating Team Learning in Organisations

Teams in organizations are increasingly seen as an important level and leverage for innovation and change, because they can help to let individual ideas develop into new institutional practices and support the cascading of new developments into the organization. This, in turn, can lead to the necessary innovation and change. However, why do some teams perform really well and others not? A trustworthy predicting variable of team performance is team learning. A vast amount of research has been done on this topic. However, as researcher being involved in team learning research differences between results found in quantitative and qualitative research were noticed. Main aims of this chapter was on the one hand to make an inventory of antecedents influencing team learning and on the other hand to see whether there are differences between results found in quantitative and qualitative studies. Results show that many antecedents could be identified, based on both quantitative and qualitative research. And as expected there are significant differences between both strands of research. Whereas quantitative research mainly focusses on testing hypotheses of antecedents influencing team learning, qualitative research tries to unravel mechanisms on how these antecedents work and how team learning processes are influenced. Majority of the research belongs to the quantitative strand, whereas there are major questions open that only can be answered by means of qualitative research

Pseudodioon akyoli gen. et sp. nov., an extinct member of Cycadales from the Turkish Miocene

Fossil cycadalean leaves recorded from the Miocene plant assemblage of Soma, western Turkey, are described and assigned to an extinct genus and species, Pseudodioon akyoli. Leaf macromorphology suggests affinity with members of the Zamiaceae (subfam. Encephalartoideae), particularly with modern Dioon. Micromorphological features on the other hand indicate affinity with modern Cycas (Cycadaceae). Ordinary cells on the adaxial epidermis are isodiametric and are not differentiated into thick- and thin-walled cells. This is similar to Encephalartoideae-like fossils reported from the Cenozoic of the Northern Hemisphere, and even from the Mesozoic. Shared macromorphological traits of P. akyoli and other coeval Encephalartoideae-like fossil cycadalean leaves from Europe suggest that an extinct group of cycads inhabited southern Europe from the western part of Turkey, through Greece and France to Switzerland in the north during the Oligo-Miocene

Green information technology adoption antecedence: a conceptual framework

Green Information Technology (Green IT) has been adopted in developed countries, as a strategic initiative consideration for developing sustainable business practices, through the balancing economic and environmental performance of an organization. However, there is still a low adoption in developing countries like Malaysia, and limited empirical research on the Green IT adoption, despite it being a necessity even though numerous government incentives were provided to adopt the green IT in Malaysia. The aims of this research are to develop a conceptual framework to determine the relationship between learning capability, innovation capability, emotional capability, and government incentives as drivers toward green IT Adoption. In order to develop the green IT adoption’s antecedents’ relationships in Malaysia, this research will rely on some technology adoption theories such as Technology-organization-environment (TOE), Resource-based theory (RBT), Institutional theory (IT). Based on previous literature, there is a relationship among green IT adoption with organization capabilities, and government incentives, but in a scattered manner. Furthermore, this study has provided integrated framework for researchers and business homes, it showed that internal and external factors play major role in green IT adoption within organizations, So, they can start their green initiatives to cope with requirements in a new industrial revolution 4.0. Also, economic and environment sustainability should be considered as consequences factors in future researches

The Büyük Menderes River: Origin of Meandering Phenomenon

The Büyük Menderes River is the longest river that discharges into the Aegean Sea, with a length of 615 km. It is one of the main rivers dominating in the geomorphology of western Turkey, with its drainage basin that reaches to 24,000 km2. The river is also very important because of its meandering channel patterns. The term ‘meandering’ in geomorphology, architecture and art originates from the ancient name of this river: Maiandros. Its catchment area mainly consists of three courses located in the main grabens of the region. The upper course of the Büyük Menderes River is located in the Baklan-Dinar Graben, while the middle and lower courses are in the Denizli and Büyük Menderes grabens, respectively. The aim of this study is to describe the meandering channel features of this river in its current course from its source to its mouth, and related landforms and landscapes. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG