Moving boundary problems

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

The Consequences of Polyandry for Sibship Structures, Distributions of Relationships and Relatedness, and Potential for Inbreeding in a Wild Population

We thank the Tsawout and Tseycum First Nations for access to Mandarte Island, Pirmin Nietlisbach, Lukas Keller, Greta Bocedi, Brad Duthie, and Matthew Wolak for helpful discussions, and the European Research Council, National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Swiss National Science Foundation for funding. Field data collected following UBC Animal Care Committee (A07-0309) and Environment Canada (Master banding permit 10596) guidelines.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Tourism Management and Industrial Ecology: A Theoretical Review

Industrial Ecology (IE) is based on the relation between the natural ecosystem and economic ecosystem. The concept refers to the metaphorical relation between the natural and industrial ecosystems as a model for transforming unsustainable industrial systems. Several tools and strategies are particularly significant for the IE development. In other words, the primary purpose of industrial ecology is to assess and reduce the impact economic activities on the environment. Tourism, as an economic activity, resulting in a full range of environmental impacts, should be treated like any other industry. This paper propose uses a theoretical review focused on IE for to investigate what is the best way to implement industrial ecology in the tourism activities. It seemed interesting to search within the IE concept for a model for the tourism sector, one of the fields with the greatest environmental interaction and economic implications

Recent immigrants alter the quantitative genetic architecture of paternity in song sparrows

Funding Information Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada FP7 Ideas: European Research Council. Grant Number: 309453Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Testing evolutionary models of senescence in a natural population: age and inbreeding effects on fitness components in song sparrows

Mutation accumulation (MA) and antagonistic pleiotropy (AP) have each been hypothesized to explain the evolution of ‘senescence’ or deteriorating fitness in old age. These hypotheses make contrasting predictions concerning age dependence in inbreeding depression in traits that show senescence. Inbreeding depression is predicted to increase with age under MA but not under AP, suggesting one empirical means by which the two can be distinguished. We use pedigree and life-history data from free-living song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) to test for additive and interactive effects of age and individual inbreeding coefficient (f) on fitness components, and thereby assess the evidence for MA. Annual reproductive success (ARS) and survival (and therefore reproductive value) declined in old age in both sexes, indicating senescence in this short-lived bird. ARS declined with f in both sexes and survival declined with f in males, indicating inbreeding depression in fitness. We observed a significant age×f interaction for male ARS (reflecting increased inbreeding depression as males aged), but not for female ARS or survival in either sex. These analyses therefore provide mixed support for MA. We discuss the strengths and limitations of such analyses and therefore the value of natural pedigreed populations in testing evolutionary models of senescence

Business model configuration and dynamics for technology commercialization in mature markets

Purpose: The food industry is a well-established and complex industry. New entrants attempting to penetrate it via the commercialization of a new technological innovation could face high uncertainty and constraints. The capability to innovate through collaboration and to identify suitable strategies and innovative business models can be particularly important for bringing a technological innovation to this market. However, although the potential for these capabilities has been advocated, we still lack a complete understanding of how new ventures could support the technology commercialization process via the development of business models. Design/methodology/approach: To address this gap, this paper 1) builds a conceptual framework that knits together the different bodies of extant literature (i.e. entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation) to analyse the business model innovation processes associated with the exploitation of emerging technologies; 2) determines the suitability of the framework using data from the exploratory case study of ISIT3D - a firm which has started to exploit 3D printing in the food industry; 3) improves the initial conceptual framework with the findings that emerged in the case study. Findings: From this analysis it emerged that: 1) companies could use more than one BM at a time; hence, BM innovation processes could coexist and be run in parallel; 2) the facing of high uncertainty might lead firms to choose a closed and/or a familiar business model, while explorative strategies could be pursued with open business models; 3) significant changes in strategies during the technology commercialisation process are not necessarily reflected in a radical change in the business model and 4) firms could deliberately adopt interim strategies and BMs as means to identify the more suitable ones to reach the market. Originality/value: This case study illustrates how firms could innovate the processes of their BM development to face the uncertainties linked with the entry into a mature and highly conservative industry (food).This research work was supported by the Roma Tre Scholarship and the “Bit by bit: Capturing the value from the digital fabrication revolution” project, funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (Ref. EP/K039598/1)

Il Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment per la valutazione della sostenibilità aziendale

This paper aims to analyze a method of analysis that highlights the results of the evaluation global sustainability, understood as environmental sustainability, but also economic and social, remains today a subject to be fully developed. The application of the related tools for the realization of a model adaptable to strategies and management of sustainability in general and, in particular enterprise, based on Life Cycle Thinking represent the point of departure for the entire developed, which is proposed as the ultimate goal, the analysis of the methodology and instruments through the application to a case stud

Near Field Communication: Technology and Market Trends

Among the different hi-tech content domains, the telecommunications industry is one of the most relevant, in particular for the Italian economy. Moreover, Near Field Communication (NFC) represents an example of innovative production and a technological introduction in the telecommunications context. It has a threefold function: card emulator, peer-to-peer communication and digital content access, and it could be pervasively integrated in many different domains, especially in the mobile payment one. The increasing attention on NFC technology from the academic community has improved an analysis on the changes and the development perspective about mobile payments. It has considered the work done by the GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) and the NFC Forum in recent years. This study starts from an analysis of the scientific contributions to Near Field Communication and how the main researches on this topic were conceived. Our focus is on the diffusion rates, the adoption rates and the technology life cycle. After that, we analyze the technical-economical elements of NFC. Finally, this work presents the state of art of the improvements to this technology with a deeper focus on NFC technologies applied to the tourism industry. In this way, we have done a case analysis that shows some of the NFC existent applications linked to each stage of the tourism value chain

Business model configuration and dynamics for technology commercialization in mature markets.

Purpose The food industry is a well-established and complex industry. New entrants attempting to penetrate it via the commercialization of a new technological innovation could face high uncertainty and constraints. The capability to innovate through collaboration and to identify suitable strategies and innovative business models (BMs) can be particularly important for bringing a technological innovation to this market. However, although the potential for these capabilities has been advocated, we still lack a complete understanding of how new ventures could support the technology commercialization process via the development of BMs. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach To address this gap, this paper builds a conceptual framework that knits together the different bodies of extant literature (i.e. entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation) to analyze the BM innovation processes associated with the exploitation of emerging technologies; determines the suitability of the framework using data from the exploratory case study of IT IS 3D – a firm which has started to exploit 3D printing in the food industry; and improves the initial conceptual framework with the findings that emerged in the case study. Findings From this analysis it emerged that: companies could use more than one BM at a time; hence, BM innovation processes could co-exist and be run in parallel; the facing of high uncertainty might lead firms to choose a closed and/or a familiar BM, while explorative strategies could be pursued with open BMs; significant changes in strategies during the technology commercialization process are not necessarily reflected in a radical change in the BM; and firms could deliberately adopt interim strategies and BMs as means to identify the more suitable ones to reach the market. Originality/value This case study illustrates how firms could innovate the processes of their BM development to face the uncertainties linked with the entry into a mature and highly conservative industry (food)

Loss of Mhc and Neutral Variation in Peary Caribou: Genetic Drift Is Not Mitigated by Balancing Selection or Exacerbated by Mhc Allele Distributions

Theory and empirical results suggest that the rate of loss of variation at Mhc and neutral microsatellite loci may differ because selection influences Mhc genes, and because a high proportion of rare alleles at Mhc loci may result in high rates of loss via drift. Most published studies compare Mhc and microsatellite variation in various contemporary populations to infer the effects of population size on genetic variation, even though different populations are likely to have different demographic histories that may also affect contemporary genetic variation. We directly compared loss of variation at Mhc and microsatellite loci in Peary caribou by comparing historical and contemporary samples. We observed that similar proportions of genetic variation were lost over time at each type of marker despite strong evidence for selection at Mhc genes. These results suggest that microsatellites can be used to estimate genome-wide levels of variation, but also that adaptive potential is likely to be lost following population bottlenecks. However, gene conversion and recombination at Mhc loci may act to increase variation following bottlenecks