Degree of Technology, Adequacy of Infrastructure, and Stimulus Rainy-Day-Fund as Determinants of a Firm’s Performance during a Pandemic

This research aims to use a quantitative research method to measure the degree of technology, adequacy of infrastructure, and stimulus/rainy day fund as determinants of a firm’s performance during a pandemic. The paper draws from the contingency theory, which focuses on situational variables and leadership styles for effective leadership in managing events. The theory describes that “there is no single right method of doing things and it’s the context which decides the best approach” (Kureshi, 2013). Leaders guide every innovation and change in an organization for the purpose of self-enhancement (Özkan, et al., 2017). Although abundant research exists on managing internal organization crises, disasters, and unexpected events, existing research on managing pandemic crises is relatively little. This paper uses COVID-19 as a base for testing a firm’s performance during a pandemic, which, the paper argues, cannot be managed through standard crisis management. COVID-19 impacted the world and employees’ health. Various methods have been applied to protect employees from being sick, including remote work and social distancing. In this paper, technology such as automation and digitalization, adequacy of infrastructure for social distancing, and stimulus/rainy-day-fund are proposed as alternatives to manage pandemic crises. A survey was designed and sent to the leaders of United States’ corporations through Qualtrics, a web-based survey software. The data collected was analyzed using SmartPLS 3 to test the hypothesized relationships. Overall, the results supported the hypothesized relationships, including (1) direct relationship between the adequacy of infrastructure and a firm’s performance and (2) indirect relationships between the degree of technology and stimulus/rainy day fund determinants and a firm’s performance during a pandemic. Although predicted, the results did not support the hypothesized direct relationships between the degree of technology and stimulus/rainy-day-fund determinants and a firm’s performance during a pandemic

Chimpanzee Personality and the Arginine Vasopressin Receptor 1A Genotype

Polymorphisms of the arginine vasopressin receptor 1a (AVPR1a) gene have been linked to various measures related to human social behavior, including sibling conflict and agreeableness. In chimpanzees, AVPR1a polymorphisms have been associated with traits important for social interactions, including sociability, joint attention, dominance, conscientiousness, and hierarchical personality dimensions named low alpha/stability, disinhibition, and negative emotionality/low dominance. We examined associations between AVPR1a and six personality domains and hierarchical personality dimensions in 129 chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) living in Japan or in a sanctuary in Guinea. We fit three linear and three animal models. The first model included genotype, the second included sex and genotype, and the third included genotype, sex, and sex × genotype. All personality phenotypes were heritable. Chimpanzees possessing the long form of the allele were higher in conscientiousness, but only in models that did not include the other predictors; however, additional analyses suggested that this may have been a consequence of study design. In animal models that included sex and sex × genotype, chimpanzees homozygous for the short form of the allele were higher in extraversion. Taken with the findings of previous studies of chimpanzees and humans, the findings related to conscientiousness suggest that AVPR1a may be related to lower levels of impulsive aggression. The direction of the association between AVPR1a genotype and extraversion ran counter to what one would expect if AVPR1a was related to social behaviors. These results help us further understand the genetic basis of personality in chimpanzees

Chimpanzee vertebrate consumption: Savanna and forest chimpanzees compared

There is broad consensus among paleoanthropologists that meat-eating played a key role in the evolution of Homo, but the details of where, when, and why are hotly debated. It has been argued that increased faunivory was causally connected with hominin adaptation to open, savanna habitats. If savanna-dwelling chimpanzees eat meat more frequently than do forest chimpanzees, it would support the notion that open, dry, seasonal habitats promote hunting or scavenging by hominoids. Here we present observational and fecal analysis data on vertebrate consumption from several localities within the dry, open Ugalla region of Tanzania. Combining these with published fecal analyses, we summarize chimpanzee vertebrate consumption rates, showing quantitatively that savanna chimpanzee populations do not differ significantly from forest populations. Compared with forest populations, savanna chimpanzees consume smaller vertebrates that are less likely to be shared, and they do so more seasonally. Analyses of chimpanzee hunting that focus exclusively on capture of forest monkeys are thus difficult to apply to chimpanzee faunivory in open-country habitats and may be misleading when used to model early hominin behavior. These findings bear on discussions of why chimpanzees hunt and suggest that increases in hominin faunivory were related to differences between hominins and chimpanzees and/or differences between modern and Pliocene savanna woodland environments

A case of maxillary sarcoma in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes).

Oral malignancy is rare in chimpanzees. A 34-year-old female chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) at Kumamoto Sanctuary, Japan, had developed it. Treatment is technically difficult for chimpanzees while malignant neoplasm is seemingly rising in captive populations. Widespread expert discussion, guidelines for treatment, especially for great apes in terminal stages is urgently needed

Sex-specific association patterns in bonobos and chimpanzees reflect species differences in cooperation

In several group-living species, individuals' social preferences are thought to be influenced by cooperation. For some societies with fission–fusion dynamics, sex-specific association patterns reflect sex differences in cooperation in within- and between-group contexts. In our study, we investigated this hypothesis further by comparing sex-specific association patterns in two closely related species, chimpanzees and bonobos, which differ in the level of between-group competition and in the degree to which sex and kinship influence dyadic cooperation. Here, we used long-term party composition data collected on five chimpanzee and two bonobo communities and assessed, for each individual of 10 years and older, the sex of its top associate and of all conspecifics with whom it associated more frequently than expected by chance. We found clear species differences in association patterns. While in all chimpanzee communities males and females associated more with same-sex partners, in bonobos males and females tended to associate preferentially with females, but the female association preference for other females is lower than in chimpanzees. Our results also show that, for bonobos (but not for chimpanzees), association patterns were predominantly driven by mother–offspring relationships. These species differences in association patterns reflect the high levels of male–male cooperation in chimpanzees and of mother–son cooperation in bonobos. Finally, female chimpanzees showed intense association with a few other females, and male chimpanzees showed more uniform association across males. In bonobos, the most differentiated associations were from males towards females. Chimpanzee male association patterns mirror fundamental human male social traits and, as in humans, may have evolved as a response to strong between-group competition. The lack of such a pattern in a closely related species with a lower degree of between-group competition further supports this notion

Auditory ERPs to Stimulus Deviance in an Awake Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): Towards Hominid Cognitive Neurosciences

BACKGROUND: For decades, the chimpanzee, phylogenetically closest to humans, has been analyzed intensively in comparative cognitive studies. Other than the accumulation of behavioral data, the neural basis for cognitive processing in the chimpanzee remains to be clarified. To increase our knowledge on the evolutionary and neural basis of human cognition, comparative neurophysiological studies exploring endogenous neural activities in the awake state are needed. However, to date, such studies have rarely been reported in non-human hominid species, due to the practical difficulties in conducting non-invasive measurements on awake individuals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We measured auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) of a fully awake chimpanzee, with reference to a well-documented component of human studies, namely mismatch negativity (MMN). In response to infrequent, deviant tones that were delivered in a uniform sound stream, a comparable ERP component could be detected as negative deflections in early latencies. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The present study reports the MMN-like component in a chimpanzee for the first time. In human studies, various ERP components, including MMN, are well-documented indicators of cognitive and neural processing. The results of the present study validate the use of non-invasive ERP measurements for studies on cognitive and neural processing in chimpanzees, and open the way for future studies comparing endogenous neural activities between humans and chimpanzees. This signifies an essential step in hominid cognitive neurosciences

Neural Correlates of Face and Object Perception in an Awake Chimpanzee (Pan Troglodytes) Examined by Scalp-Surface Event-Related Potentials

BACKGROUND: The neural system of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, is a topic of increasing research interest. However, electrophysiological examinations of neural activity during visual processing in awake chimpanzees are currently lacking. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the present report, skin-surface event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were measured while a fully awake chimpanzee observed photographs of faces and objects in two experiments. In Experiment 1, human faces and stimuli composed of scrambled face images were displayed. In Experiment 2, three types of pictures (faces, flowers, and cars) were presented. The waveforms evoked by face stimuli were distinguished from other stimulus types, as reflected by an enhanced early positivity appearing before 200 ms post stimulus, and an enhanced late negativity after 200 ms, around posterior and occipito-temporal sites. Face-sensitive activity was clearly observed in both experiments. However, in contrast to the robustly observed face-evoked N170 component in humans, we found that faces did not elicit a peak in the latency range of 150-200 ms in either experiment. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although this pilot study examined a single subject and requires further examination, the observed scalp voltage patterns suggest that selective processing of faces in the chimpanzee brain can be detected by recording surface ERPs. In addition, this non-invasive method for examining an awake chimpanzee can be used to extend our knowledge of the characteristics of visual cognition in other primate species

Male-Mediated Gene Flow in Patrilocal Primates

BACKGROUND: Many group-living species display strong sex biases in dispersal tendencies. However, gene flow mediated by apparently philopatric sex may still occur and potentially alters population structure. In our closest living evolutionary relatives, dispersal of adult males seems to be precluded by high levels of territoriality between males of different groups in chimpanzees, and has only been observed once in bonobos. Still, male-mediated gene flow might occur through rare events such as extra-group matings leading to extra-group paternity (EGP) and female secondary dispersal with offspring, but the extent of this gene flow has not yet been assessed. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using autosomal microsatellite genotyping of samples from multiple groups of wild western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and bonobos (Pan paniscus), we found low genetic differentiation among groups for both males and females. Characterization of Y-chromosome microsatellites revealed levels of genetic differentiation between groups in bonobos almost as high as those reported previously in eastern chimpanzees, but lower levels of differentiation in western chimpanzees. By using simulations to evaluate the patterns of Y-chromosomal variation expected under realistic assumptions of group size, mutation rate and reproductive skew, we demonstrate that the observed presence of multiple and highly divergent Y-haplotypes within western chimpanzee and bonobo groups is best explained by successful male-mediated gene flow. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The similarity of inferred rates of male-mediated gene flow and published rates of EGP in western chimpanzees suggests this is the most likely mechanism of male-mediated gene flow in this subspecies. In bonobos more data are needed to refine the estimated rate of gene flow. Our findings suggest that dispersal patterns in these closely related species, and particularly for the chimpanzee subspecies, are more variable than previously appreciated. This is consistent with growing recognition of extensive behavioral variation in chimpanzees and bonobos

Homosexual Behavior Between Male Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).

Homosexual behavior is defined as genital contact or genital manipulation between same-sex individuals. In nonhuman primates, it may regulate social relationships by serving as a means of reconciliation, tension alleviation, or alliance formation. Grappling is a rare and complex behavior, which most frequently occurs between same-sex individuals of the genus Ateles and can include mutual manipulation of the genitalia. Here we report three cases of penile-anal intromission during grappling between wild male spider monkeys living in the natural protected area of Otoch Ma'ax Yetel Kooh, Mexico. In all the observed cases, the same adult male was the actor. To our knowledge, this is the first report of penile-anal intromission between males in any New World primate species

Homosexual Behavior Between Male Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi).

Homosexual behavior is defined as genital contact or genital manipulation between same-sex individuals. In nonhuman primates, it may regulate social relationships by serving as a means of reconciliation, tension alleviation, or alliance formation. Grappling is a rare and complex behavior, which most frequently occurs between same-sex individuals of the genus Ateles and can include mutual manipulation of the genitalia. Here we report three cases of penile-anal intromission during grappling between wild male spider monkeys living in the natural protected area of Otoch Ma'ax Yetel Kooh, Mexico. In all the observed cases, the same adult male was the actor. To our knowledge, this is the first report of penile-anal intromission between males in any New World primate species