Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors: evidence from Singapore

We study discrimination on the basis of national origin in Singapore by exploring how the group identity discernible in a speaker's accent affects trust. In the trust game, Singaporean Chinese (SGC) senders were asked to listen to audio clips in which responders with either an SGC or a Mainland Chinese (MLC) accent read a two-sentence script before the senders decided how much money to send. We also used the strategy method to elicit the senders' beliefs about the trustworthiness of responders with an MLC accent versus those with an SGC accent. Contrary to our expectations and the common perception in Singapore, we found that Singaporean senders tended to place more trust in responders with an MLC accent than in responders with an SGC accent. We explain this difference on the basis of the Singaporean senders' beliefs about trustworthiness: they believed that people with an MLC accent would return more money to senders than would the in-group Singaporean counterparts. To bolster our findings, we confirmed in a separate experiment that the difference in response to the accents was not due to the speech rate or vocal pitch

Key problems of seismic zoning of urban areas adjacent to the Mongolia-Siberian region (by the example of Erdenet town)

The first approximation approach to seismic zoning of the areas adjacent to the Mongolia-Siberian region has been followed by the example of Erdenet town. The grounds have been given for problematic stages of working: study of some regular trends of seismic setting and current level of initial seismicity of the area; identification of seismic activity areas and assessment of their seismic potential; seismic modeling of sites with the most typical soil conditions; model theoretical calculating of basic parameters of seismic effects and model zoning of the investigated area. Technically, the stages of Erdenet town case study can serve as a basis for seismic zoning of the areas of interest that are adjacent to the Mongolia-Siberian region.The work has been done under financial support of RFBR project No. 07-05- 90111.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5564/pmas.v0i4.38Proceedings of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences 2007 No 4 pp.17-3

MITOCHONDRIAL DNA ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT DOMESTIC GOAT IN THE MONGOLIA

Food and agricultural production sector, especially livestock production is vital for Mongolia’s economic and social development. The five breeds of livestock – cattle, horses, sheep, goats and camels, have always been directly related to the history, culture and economy of Mongolia. It is undeniable that these five breeds of livestock are considered as an important asset of the Mongolian economy as well as guarantee of national security. Out of the five breeds, small livestock including sheep and goats account for more than 80% of the total livestock population (according to the National Statistical Office data). It is not hard to retrieve research and recorded materials about the morphology or the economic productivity of these breeds and their sub-breeds. However, the development of society now demands higher yield from the livestock animals. Genetically, the a1, a2, a3 and a4 samples appertaining to some 3,000 years ago are substantially different from the haplogroups. However, judging by the phylogenetic tree the 800 year-old samples, as compared to the phylogroups of the 3rd century BC, are closer to the modern samples. Alongside this, from molecular distance we find that the M1 haplogroup is a sample belonging to the 3rd century BC, which had separated the earliest, while the aforementioned 800 year-old sample separates at a later period, which chronologically is convincing. But the a6 ancient sample conforms to the B haplogroup and the a8 or the sample of 800 years ago is in the same haplogroup as the sample of the 3rd century BC. However, the a6 sample obtained from the 3rd century BC tombs obtained sample was the origin of modern goats that can be included in haplogroup B

Trust and communication in a property rights dilemma

We study a laboratory social dilemma game in which incentives to steal from others lead to the socially inefficient diversion of resources from production unless the members of a given mini-society can abide by norms of non-theft or engage in low cost collective protection of their members' wealth accumulations. We compare two treatments in which subjects have opportunities to exchange free-form messages to one without such opportunities, finding that most subjects allocate far less to theft and most groups achieve much greater efficiency in the presence of communication. Ease of identifying who has engaged in theft varies across the two communication treatments, but is of minor importance to the outcome. We find several coding-amenable elements of message content to be statistically significant predictors of group and individual outcomes

Brutareale und Brutbiologie der Greifvogelarten der Mongolei = Grid Mapping and Breeding Ecology of Raptors in Mongolia

This work summarizes the longtime ecological research of the German-Mongolian scientific cooperation regarding biodiversity studies in Central Asia, focusing on native raptor species (Aves: Falconiformes). There is included a short overview on the history of raptor research in Mongolia. One of the primary goals was the creation of distribution maps of breeding records based on definitive time and space coordinates. Additional data on the breeding biology amend the distribution data. Currently 43 raptor species are recorded for Mongolia. Whenever possible were also incorporated data from adjacent regions of Mongolia (China, Tuva, Burjatia, Pribaikalia), in order to embed the avifauna of Mongolia into this wider geographical setting. First data on migration based on ringing and marking are available for the Cinereous Vulture (Aegypius monachus), Black Kite (Milvus migrans), and the Short-toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus)

Building an integrated infrastructure for exploring biodiversity: field collections and archives of mammals and parasites.

Museum specimens play an increasingly important role in predicting the outcomes and revealing the consequences of anthropogenically driven disruption of the biosphere. As ecological communities respond to ongoing environmental change, host-parasite interactions are also altered. This shifting landscape of host-parasite associations creates opportunities for colonization of different hosts and emergence of new pathogens, with implications for wildlife conservation and management, public health, and other societal concerns. Integrated archives that document and preserve mammal specimens along with their communities of associated parasites and ancillary data provide a powerful resource for investigating, anticipating, and mitigating the epidemiological, ecological, and evolutionary impacts of environmental perturbation. Mammalogists who collect and archive mammal specimens have a unique opportunity to expand the scope and impact of their field work by collecting the parasites that are associated with their study organisms. We encourage mammalogists to embrace an integrated and holistic sampling paradigm and advocate for this to become standard practice for museum-based collecting. To this end, we provide a detailed, field-tested protocol to give mammalogists the tools to collect and preserve host and parasite materials that are of high quality and suitable for a range of potential downstream analyses (e.g., genetic, morphological). Finally, we also encourage increased global cooperation across taxonomic disciplines to build an integrated series of baselines and snapshots of the changing biosphere. Los especímenes de museo desempeñan un papel cada vez más importante tanto en la descripción de los resultados de la alteración antropogénica de la biosfera como en la predicción de sus consecuencias. Dado que las comunidades ecológicas responden al cambio ambiental, también se alteran las interacciones hospedador-parásito. Este panorama cambiante de asociaciones hospedador-parásito crea oportunidades para la colonización de diferentes hospedadores y para la aparición de nuevos patógenos, con implicancias en la conservación y manejo de la vida silvestre, la salud pública y otras preocupaciones de importancia para la sociedad. Archivos integrados que documentan y preservan especímenes de mamíferos junto con sus comunidades de parásitos y datos asociados, proporcionan un fuerte recurso para investigar, anticipar y mitigar los impactos epidemiológicos, ecológicos y evolutivos de las perturbaciones ambientales. Los mastozoólogos que recolectan y archivan muestras de mamíferos, tienen una oportunidad única de ampliar el alcance e impacto de su trabajo de campo mediante la recolección de los parásitos que están asociados con los organismos que estudian. Alentamos a los mastozoólogos a adoptar un paradigma de muestreo integrado y holístico y abogamos para que esto se convierta en una práctica estándarizada de la obtención de muestras para museos. Con este objetivo, proporcionamos un protocolo detallado y probado en el campo para brindar a los mastozoólogos las herramientas para recolectar y preservar materiales de parásitos y hospedadores de alta calidad y adecuados para una gran variedad de análisis subsecuentes (e.g., genéticos, morfológicos, etc.). Finalmente, también abogamos por una mayor cooperación global entre las diversas disciplinas taxonómicas para construir una serie integrada de líneas de base y registros actuales de nuestra cambiante biosfera

Effect of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine six years post-introduction on pneumococcal carriage in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Limited data from Asia are available on long-term effects of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction on pneumococcal carriage. Here we assess the impact of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) introduction on nasopharyngeal pneumococcal carriage prevalence, density and antimicrobial resistance. Cross-sectional carriage surveys were conducted pre-PCV13 (2015) and post-PCV13 introduction (2017 and 2022). Pneumococci were detected and quantified by real-time PCR from nasopharyngeal swabs. DNA microarray was used for molecular serotyping and to infer genetic lineage (Global Pneumococcal Sequence Cluster). The study included 1461 infants (5-8 weeks old) and 1489 toddlers (12-23 months old) enrolled from family health clinics. We show a reduction in PCV13 serotype carriage (with non-PCV13 serotype replacement) and a reduction in the proportion of samples containing resistance genes in toddlers six years post-PCV13 introduction. We observed an increase in pneumococcal nasopharyngeal density. Serotype 15 A, the most prevalent non-vaccine-serotype in 2022, was comprised predominantly of GPSC904;9. Reductions in PCV13 serotype carriage will likely result in pneumococcal disease reduction. It is important for ongoing surveillance to monitor serotype changes to potentially inform new vaccine development

Coccidia (Apicomplexa: Eimeriidae) from \u3ci\u3eVespertilio murinus\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eEptesicus gobiensis\u3c/i\u3e (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in Mongolia and How Many Species of Coccidia Occur in Bats?

An examination of the feces from 28 bats collected in 1999 and from 12 bats collected in 2009, all from Mongolia, revealed the presence of two new species of coccidian parasites of the genus Eimeria. Bats representing two species assigned to different genera were studied including: Vespertillio murinus and Eptesicus gobiensis. Oocysts of Eimeria stubbei n. sp. from V. murinus collected in 1999 are ellipsoid, average length and width of 22.4 x 18.7 μm, with a 1.5 μm thick double layered wall and a single polar granule. Sporocysts of this species are ovoid, 10.0 x 7.2 μm in length and width, with a Steida body and a sporocyst residuum consisting of 2–3 globules. Oocysts of Eimeria samiyai n. sp., from E. gobiensis collected in 2009 are ellipsoid, 26.3 x 19.9 μm in average length and width, with a 1.6 μm thick double layered wall and a single polar granule. Their sporocysts are ovoidal, with a length and width of 11.9 x 7.7 μm with a prominent Steida body and a sporocyst residuum