Rates of agonism among female primates: a cross-taxon perspective

Agonism is common in group-living animals, shaping dominance relationships and ultimately impacting individual tness. Rates of agonism vary considerably among taxa, however, and explaining this variation has been central in ecological models of female social relationships in primates. Early iterations of these models posited a link to diet, with more frequent agonism predicted in frugivorous species due to the presumed greater contestability of fruits relative to other food types. Although some more recent studies have suggested that dietary categories may be poor predictors of contest competition among primates, to date there have been no broad, cross-taxa comparisons of rates of female–female agonism in relation to diet. This study tests whether dietary variables do indeed pre- dict rates of female agonism and further investigates the role of group size (i.e., number of competitors) and substrate use (i.e., degree of arboreality) on the frequency of agonism. Data from 44 wild, unprovisioned groups, including 3 strepsirhine species, 3 platyrrhines, 5 colobines, 10 cercopithecines, and 2 hominoids were analyzed using phylogenetically controlled and uncontrolled methods. Results indicate that diet does not predict agonistic rates, with trends actually being in the opposite direction than predicted for all taxa except cercopithecines. In contrast, agonistic rates are positively associated with group size and possibly degree of terrestriality. Competitor density and perhaps the risk of ghting, thus, appear more important than general diet in predicting agonism among female primates. We discuss the implications of these results for socio-ecological hypotheses

A graph-theoretic approach to analyzing decoding failures of BIKE

We present experimental findings on the decoding failure rate (DFR) of BIKE, a fourth-round candidate in the NIST Post-Quantum Standardization process, at the 20-bit security level using graph-theoretic approaches. We select parameters according to BIKE design principles and conduct a series of experiments using Rust to generate significantly more decoding failure instances than in prior work using SageMath. For each decoding failure, we study the internal state of the decoder at each iteration and find that for 97% of decoding failures at block size $r=587$, the decoder reaches a fixed point within 7 iterations. We then consider the corresponding Tanner graphs of each decoding failure instance to determine whether the decoding failures are due to absorbing sets. We find that 81% of decoding failures at $r=587$ were caused by absorbing sets, and of these the majority were $(d,d)$-near codewords

The Divine Feminine

(Statement of Responsibility) by Zoe Rayor(Thesis) Thesis (B.A.) -- New College of Florida, 2012RESTRICTED TO NCF STUDENTS, STAFF, FACULTY, AND ON-CAMPUS USE(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references.This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.Faculty Sponsor: White, Heather R

Reimagining the Fragments of Sappho

Recent Sappho discoveries allow us to reinterpret old fragments in light of the new additions to them. This paper focuses on the process of translating fragments, particularly the New Kyprispoem, which is the more complete fr. 26 (Voigt), as well as (briefly) the re-translations of frs. 5, 9, and 17. While fr. 5 requires the additional pieces to fill in gaps and confirms a clear scenario, fr. 9 merely adds a few word images to the current list, and fr. 17 demonstrates how tenuous are our guesses in filling gaps. The new Kypris poem, however, radically changes the reading of the fragment 26 (Voigt) to which it adds. The initial six lines of the Kypris poem overlap with fr. 26 sufficiently to show that the previous suppositions were completely incorrect, and that the three stanzas address Aphrodite and most probably focus on the pain of erotic passion. Translations of Sappho, particularly those for readers who cannot consult the Greek, optimally work on three levels: 1) The translation invokes the absent song. This involves working with sound, as well as paying attention to signs that could indicate performance possibilities (such as feminine plurals for choral song). 2) The translation reads as poetry. This involves compensating for missing words by helping the reader fill the gaps. 3) The translation evokes the physical fragment on worn or torn papyrus through various strategies. Readers of Sappho come to the Greek text with their own expectations of what makes a Sappho poem. Because translators are readers first and then writers of text, translations provide a lens on the storytelling process. In translating fragments, the reader imagines a story, the song behind the scraps of words and phrases; the mind connects the dots to produce some kind of story. As Rayor notes, The holes in the text are not left empty in the reading process. As we read, we fill in, read between the lines. (15) This happens even with small scraps (cf. Anne Carsons If Not, Winter in which if is not fully visible in the Greek fragment [22], yet the title of the book and the translation of the fragment build a story of Sapphos poetry). A single word can shape the tone of the fragment. An example is the word choice for the sole word visible in the P.Oxy. 1231 of fr. 26.5: »µ¼¬Ä[ (idle, vain, crazy, day-dreaming). Each possibility calls up a different image of the speaker and referent. Yet in the context of the Kypris poem additions (P. Sapph. Obbink), it is most likely an adverb referring to the goddess: Old Version Fr. 26.1-6 &often& &because the people I treat well, wrong me most of all [ ] &day-dreaming& [ ] New Version with P. Sapph. Obbink How could someone not keep feeling pain, Queen Aphrodite, wishing most of all to call back the person one loves? [What] do you have [in mind], to idly rend me [with shaking from desire] loosening [my knees]? Expectations of Sappho as a historical person, her poetry, and the individual fragment guide translation. We translate each piece as fitting into the overall picture in our minds (the way she ends her poems, whether it is choral, the speaker is Sappho, addressed to women, etc.). Retranslating Sapphos fragments in light of new finds illuminates the process and demonstrates the necessity of shedding previous assumptions to incorporate new discoveries. Citations: Burris, S., Fish, J., Obbink, D. New Fragments of Book 1 of Sappho, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 189 (2014) 1-28. Obbink, D. Two New Poems by Sappho, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 189 (2014) 32-49. Rayor, D. Translating Fragments, Translation Review 32/33 (1990) 15-18. Venuti, L. Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice. Routledge 2013