Keynote Reflections: The Public Governance Duty

Firms must take ever greater risks to try to innovate and create value in our increasingly competitive and complex global economy. Corporate governance law generally delegates control over excessive risk-taking to the firm’s investors, principally its risk-seeking shareholders. But this does not cover the type of risk-taking that led to the global financial crisis and that is becoming ever more common - risk-taking that could have systemic consequences to the financial system. I argue for a “public governance duty,” requiring managers of systemically important firms to assess the impact of risk-taking on the public as well as on investors, and to balance the costs and benefits using a precautionary principle to protect the public. I also analyze the extent to which managers performing this public governance duty should be protected by a business judgment rule

«Великий перелом» 1920 – 30-x рр. у контексті регіональної історії

(uk) Розглядається регіональна політика більшовиків щодо селянства у 1920 – 30-х роках, висвітлюється опір селянства насильницькій колективізації в Центральній Україні.(en) The regional policy of bolshevists in relation to peasantry in 1920 – 30 is examined – х years, is lighted resistance of peasantry to violent collectivization in Central Ukraine

Comparative support for the expensive tissue hypothesis: big brains are correlated with smaller gut and greater parental investment in Lake Tanganyika cichlids.

The brain is one of the most energetically expensive organs in the vertebrate body. Consequently, the energetic requirements of encephalization are suggested to impose considerable constraints on brain size evolution. Three main hypotheses concerning how energetic constraints might affect brain evolution predict covariation between brain investment and i) investment into other costly tissues, ii) overall metabolic rate, and iii) reproductive investment. To date, these hypotheses have mainly been tested in homeothermic animals and the existing data are inconclusive. However, there are good reasons to believe that energetic limitations might play a role in large-scale patterns of brain size evolution also in ectothermic vertebrates. Here we test these hypotheses in a group of ectothermic vertebrates, the Lake Tanganyika cichlid fishes. After controlling for the effect of shared ancestry and confounding ecological variables, we find a negative association between brain size and gut size. Furthermore, we find that the evolution of a larger brain is accompanied by increased reproductive investment into egg size and parental care. Our results indicate that the energetic costs of encephalization may be an important general factor involved in the evolution of brain size also in ectothermic vertebrates. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Sex-specific responses to sexual familiarity, and the role of olfaction in

Studies of mating preferences have largely neglected the potential effects of individuals encountering their previous mates ('directly sexually familiar'), or new mates that share similarities to previous mates, e.g. from the same family and/or environment ('phenotypically sexually familiar'). Here, we show that male and female Drosophila melanogaster respond to the direct and phenotypic sexual familiarity of potential mates in fundamentally different ways. We exposed a single focal male or female to two potential partners. In the first experiment, one potential partner was novel (not previously encountered) and one was directly familiar (their previous mate); in the second experiment, one potential partner was novel (unrelated, and from a different environment from the previous mate) and one was phenotypically familiar (from the same family and rearing environment as the previous mate). We found that males preferentially courted novel females over directly or phenotypically familiar females. By contrast, females displayed a weak preference for directly and phenotypically familiar males over novel males. Sex-specific responses to the familiarity of potential mates were significantly weaker or absent in Orco 1 mutants, which lack a co-receptor essential for olfaction, indicating a role for olfactory cues in mate choice over novelty. Collectively, our results show that direct and phenotypic sexual familiarity is detected through olfactory cues and play an important role in sex-specific sexual behaviour

Pre-and post-copulatory sexual selection in the fowl, Gallus gallus Pre-and post-copulatory sexual selection in the fowl, Gallus gallus Doctoral dissertation 2007

Abstract The evolutionary goal of individuals is reproduction and sexual selection favours traits improving reproductive success. When males invest less than females in offspring, males have potentially a higher reproductive rate than females. This typically results in sex-specific reproductive strategies of male-male competition and female choice of mating partner. Under polyandry, sexual selection can continue after copulation as sperm competition and cryptic female choice. This thesis focuses on male and female pre-and post-copulatory reproductive strategies in the promiscuous red junglefowl, Gallus gallus ssp., and its domestic subspecies the domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus. Males impose high re-mating rates on females, which triggers female resistance in copulations. In addition, when sexual harassment increases, females remate at times of day when male mating propensity is lower, to avoid intense sexual harassment. Males allocate sperm supplies differentially according to (i) variation in female polyandry and own competitive ability, (ii) earlier sperm investment in a female, and (iii) female reproductive quality, signalled by female comb size. Males also perform 'aspermic' copulations (i.e. copulations with no semen transfer), which inhibit polyandry and in turn reduce sperm competition. In mating opportunities with relatives, males do not avoid inbreeding. However, females avoid inbreeding before copulation through kin recognition and after copulation by selecting against related males' sperm. These results show that selection on males to re-mate at higher rates than females and copulate indiscriminately according to partner relatedness, trigger counteracting female responses, creating the potential for sexual conflict over fertilisation. Teasing apart pre-and post-copulatory strategies and the contribution of each sex therefore becomes crucial in order to understand the evolution of reproductive strategies and the mechanisms affecting paternity

Supporters of sperm : The 12th Biology of Spermatozoa meeting, Hassop Hall, Derbyshire, UK

The Biology of Spermatozoa (BoS) meetings have run on a biannual basis since the early 1990s. They are dedicated to the fascinating research topic of sperm and their complicated route to fertilization. The BoS meetings focus on sperm, but they also explore additional supporting factors important in fertilization, such as those present in seminal and ovarian fluid, as well as the genomic bases of sperm biology. Here, I present a report of the recent BoS meeting, and showcase some of the highlights of this year’s meeting.Meeting Report</p

Pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection in the fowl, Gallus gallus

The evolutionary goal of individuals is reproduction and sexual selection favours traits improving reproductive success. When males invest less than females in offspring, males have potentially a higher reproductive rate than females. This typically results in sex-specific reproductive strategies of male-male competition and female choice of mating partner. Under polyandry, sexual selection can continue after copulation as sperm competition and cryptic female choice. This thesis focuses on male and female pre- and post-copulatory reproductive strategies in the promiscuous red junglefowl, Gallus gallus ssp., and its domestic subspecies the domestic fowl, Gallus gallus domesticus. Males impose high re-mating rates on females, which triggers female resistance in copulations. In addition, when sexual harassment increases, females re-mate at times of day when male mating propensity is lower, to avoid intense sexual harassment. Males allocate sperm supplies differentially according to (i) variation in female polyandry and own competitive ability, (ii) earlier sperm investment in a female, and (iii) female reproductive quality, signalled by female comb size. Males also perform ‘aspermic’ copulations (i.e. copulations with no semen transfer), which inhibit polyandry and in turn reduce sperm competition. In mating opportunities with relatives, males do not avoid inbreeding. However, females avoid inbreeding before copulation through kin recognition and after copulation by selecting against related males’ sperm. These results show that selection on males to re-mate at higher rates than females and copulate indiscriminately according to partner relatedness, trigger counteracting female responses, creating the potential for sexual conflict over fertilisation. Teasing apart pre- and post-copulatory strategies and the contribution of each sex therefore becomes crucial in order to understand the evolution of reproductive strategies and the mechanisms affecting paternity

Environmental scarcity and state capacity : the conflict of the Niger Delta

Problemstillingen er som følger: what effect does an African democracy have on conflict arising from environmental degradation? More specifically I want to investigate if the existence of a democratic regime in Nigeria has any positive effect on the conflict in the Niger Delta arising from scarcities of resources in the region. Jeg har benyttet flere ulike konfliktteorier som omhandler miljøsikkerhet og forsøkt å supplementere dem for å kunne få et bredere perspektiv på denne type konflikt. Jeg har så forsøkt å identifisere en miljøkonflikt i Niger Delta på bakgrunn av de teoretiske konseptene. Det bredere perspektivet kommer i form av å se på den nigerianske statens kapasitet til å håndtere de alvorlige miljøproblemene, administrasjon av landet og konflikten som pågår. Jeg har også sett på ulike teoretiske tilnærminger til stat og demokrati i Afrika av den grunn at dette må sees i et annet lys enn det tradisjonelle vestlige perspektivet. Caset jeg har valgt er Niger Deltaet, fordi i tillegg til miljøødeleggelser som følge av oljeproduksjon, er det også voldelige sammenstøt mellom grupper av befolkningen og angrep på oljeinstallasjoner. Noen av hovedfunnene er at til tross for at det nå holdes frie valg i landet, så er ikke det tilstrekkelig for å stanse verken konflikt eller miljøødeleggelser. Landet er preget av ekstrem korrupsjon og en elite som styrer til sin egen fordel