Genetic analysis of strain differences in pre-laying behaviour in the fowl: an ethological and genetic analysis of differences in the pre-laying behaviour of two strains of domestic fowl (Gallus gallus domesticus) confined in battery cages: a study pertaining to the evolution and adaptiveness of behaviour under conditions of natural and artificial selection

This thesis deals with the description and analysis of the pre-laying behaviour of two strains of domestic fowl (Gallus gallus domestlcus) in battery cages. Hens from one of these strains, known as the S line, showed stereotyped pacing behaviour before laying. Hens from the other strain, known as the T line, showed little or no pacing behaviour and tended to sit.Selection over two generations, for pacing in the S line and for sitting in the T line, consistently increased both variables: indicating genetic variation in the expression of the two traits.Crosses between the two lines, extending to backcross and Fl generations, indicated that the tendencies to pace and to sit during the pre-laying period were inherited separately. The tendency to sit appeared to be inherited additively, whereas the tendency topace (as opposed to not pacing) appeared to be inherited in adichotomous fashion, controlled by a single gene or a polygenic threshold system. Neither trait was sex-linked.It is suggested that the differences in the pre-laying behaviour of the two strains are due to differences in responsiveness to releasers for sitting behaviour. The T line generalise to sub-obtimal stimuli from the cage associated with the release of sitting behaviour; whilst the S line fail to do so,become frustrated, and in response to this frustration exhibit stereotyped pacing behaviour.The differences in the pre-laying behaviour of the two strains did not appear to be related to their responses to aversive stimuli or the frustration of feeding behaviour, or to their ability togeneralise to sub-optimal stimuli other than those associated with the release of sitting during the period before laying.Theoretical aspects of the study relelated to the genetics of behaviour and its evolution are relevant to Tinbergen's "derived" activities hypothesis, which postulates that some visual displays have been derived from the behaviour shown in response to motivational conflict or thwarting.Practical aspects of the study relate to the improvement of the welfare of domestic animals kept under intensive husbandry conditions by breeding domestic animals better adapted to life under such conditions than present day livestock

Links between soil microbial communities and plant traits in a species-rich grassland under long-term climate change

Climate change can influence soil microorganisms directly by altering their growth and activity but also indirectly via effects on the vegetation, which modifies the availability of resources. Direct impacts of climate change on soil microorganisms can occur rapidly, whereas indirect effects mediated by shifts in plant community composition are not immediately apparent and likely to increase over time. We used molecular fingerprinting of bacterial and fungal communities in the soil to investigate the effects of 17 years of temperature and rainfall manipulations in a species‐rich grassland near Buxton, UK. We compared shifts in microbial community structure to changes in plant species composition and key plant traits across 78 microsites within plots subjected to winter heating, rainfall supplementation, or summer drought. We observed marked shifts in soil fungal and bacterial community structure in response to chronic summer drought. Importantly, although dominant microbial taxa were largely unaffected by drought, there were substantial changes in the abundances of subordinate fungal and bacterial taxa. In contrast to short‐term studies that report high resistance of soil fungi to drought, we observed substantial losses of fungal taxa in the summer drought treatments. There was moderate concordance between soil microbial communities and plant species composition within microsites. Vector fitting of community‐weighted mean plant traits to ordinations of soil bacterial and fungal communities showed that shifts in soil microbial community structure were related to plant traits representing the quality of resources available to soil microorganisms: the construction cost of leaf material, foliar carbon‐to‐nitrogen ratios, and leaf dry matter content. Thus, our study provides evidence that climate change could affect soil microbial communities indirectly via changes in plant inputs and highlights the importance of considering long‐term climate change effects, especially in nutrient‐poor systems with slow‐growing vegetation

State-space models' dirty little secrets: even simple linear Gaussian models can have estimation problems

State-space models (SSMs) are increasingly used in ecology to model time-series such as animal movement paths and population dynamics. This type of hierarchical model is often structured to account for two levels of variability: biological stochasticity and measurement error. SSMs are flexible. They can model linear and nonlinear processes using a variety of statistical distributions. Recent ecological SSMs are often complex, with a large number of parameters to estimate. Through a simulation study, we show that even simple linear Gaussian SSMs can suffer from parameter- and state-estimation problems. We demonstrate that these problems occur primarily when measurement error is larger than biological stochasticity, the condition that often drives ecologists to use SSMs. Using an animal movement example, we show how these estimation problems can affect ecological inference. Biased parameter estimates of a SSM describing the movement of polar bears (\textit{Ursus maritimus}) result in overestimating their energy expenditure. We suggest potential solutions, but show that it often remains difficult to estimate parameters. While SSMs are powerful tools, they can give misleading results and we urge ecologists to assess whether the parameters can be estimated accurately before drawing ecological conclusions from their results

Characterization for index based livestock insurance

Pastoral populations of sub-Saharan Africa are particularly vulnerable to losses in wealth and productive assets via herdmortality shocks. Although conventional insurance mechanisms covering individual losses are not cost effective in low income extensive grazing pastoral communities, index insurance for livestock offers a promising alternative. This paper identifies regions most suitable for an index-based livestock insurance product: areas predicted to have high covariaterisk from drought, high potential demand for a livestock insurance product, and supporting market infrastructure for an insurance product. Our findings support current efforts to implement index insurance in Kenya and Ethiopia, and reveal additional areas for geographic expansion in western and southern Africa

Impacts of High Variable Renewable Energy Futures on Electric-Sector Decision Making: Demand-Side Effects

Previous work by the Berkeley Lab describes how high shares of variable renewable energy (VRE) such as wind and solar power could change wholesale electricity price dynamics. These include the timing of when electricity is cheap or expensive, locational differences in the cost of electricity, and the degree of regularity or predictability in those costs. Many decentralized decision-makers on the demand-side may not yet have considered the implications of these possible future changes. In this report, we evaluate the sensitivity of a set of demand-side decisions to different levels of VRE penetration ranging from a low of 5-20% to a high of 40-50%. The analysis builds on hourly wholesale energy and capacity prices in different VRE scenarios for four wholesale markets in the United States for the year 2030 (CAISO, ERCOT, NYISO, and SPP). The principal question for this exploration is whether private and public electric-sector decisions that are made based on assumptions reflecting low VRE levels still achieve their intended objective in a high VRE scenario with 40-50% wind and solar? This scoping report evaluates the impacts of changing patterns of peak system needs on the benefits of demand reductions by examining the altered value of different energy efficiency (EE) measures. Similarly, we investigate new opportunities for large energy consumers that may arise from periods with very low wholesale electricity prices. We calculate the value of new process investments (e.g., hydrogen production and other generalized electro-commodities), showcase the varying value of new product storage investments (such as reservoir extensions at a desalination plant), and estimate the benefits of increased process flexibility that uses electricity as a process-input in addition to traditional fossil fuels (e.g., district energy systems). Finally, many decentralized decision-makers and end-use customers are not directly exposed to wholesale electricity prices but instead receive price signals from their retail electricity rates. As wind and solar shares increase, we compare the economic efficiency of flat retail rates relative to more dynamic time-of-use tariffs with and without critical peak-pricing events

Examining the influence of task set on eye movements and fixations

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of task set on the spatial and temporal characteristics of eye movements during scene perception. In previous work, when strong control was exerted over the viewing task via specification of a target object (as in visual search), task set biased spatial, rather than temporal, parameters of eye movements. Here, we find that more participant-directed tasks (in which the task establishes general goals of viewing rather than specific objects to fixate) affect not only spatial (e.g., saccade amplitude) but also temporal parameters (e.g., fixation duration). Further, task set influenced the rate of change in fixation duration over the course of viewing but not saccade amplitude, suggesting independent mechanisms for control of these parameters

Impact of Wind, Solar, and Other Factors on Wholesale Power Prices: An Historical Analysis—2008 through 2017

Wholesale power markets have evolved. Some of the most prominent changes over the last decade in the United States include growth in wind and solar, a reduction in the price of natural gas, weakened load growth, and an increase in the retirement of thermal power plants. Here we empirically assess the degree to which wind and solar—among other factors—have influenced wholesale electricity prices. We show that wind and solar have contributed to reductions in overall average annual wholesale electricity prices since 2008, but that natural gas prices have had the largest impact. More notable is that expansion of variable renewable energy has led to significant changes in locational, time of day, and seasonal pricing patterns in some regions. These altered pricing patterns reflect a fundamental shift, and hold important implications for the grid-system value of wind and solar, and for other electric-sector planning and operating decisions

Open building for a kaleidoscope of care: a new conceptual approach to open scenario planning

Open scenario planning, in a market such as healthcare infrastructure where change at every scale is inevitable, provides a significant opportunity. Healthcare, which comprises a complex mix of people, technology, buildings and other forms of infrastructure, is facing huge pressures. As such healthcare trusts are looking to make better use of resources; decrease carbon emissions; and re-think how they can act in a more sustainable and integrated way. Within the UK National Health Service, “taking care closer to home” and “saving carbon, improving health” are two of a number of Department of Health (DH) initiatives to improve healthcare and respond to the need for sustainable, accessible, efficient and effective services. Furthermore these are also the drivers for integration between health, social care, local authority, independent and third sector providers which is creating blurring between spatial scales and roles. Against this backdrop it is not surprising that the effective life span of buildings is continuing to shorten, which is significant in a sector that has infrastructure that is one of the most expensive to operate, maintain and replace. As such the notion of “change ready” is key. This paper through a state-of-the-art literature review introduces and explores the potential and conceptual linkage between infrastructure, capacity and scalability within open building and planning extending (Astley, 2009; Kendall, 2009). The authors’ collaborative and action research has contributed to the development of a new approach and this research has identified the need for a flexible, dynamic and scenario based approach to planning that goes beyond estates strategy and beyond master planning and which precedes open building. The diversity of care pathways across a changing healthcare planning environments is demonstrated using a case study review, which raises the importance of a hierarchy of decision making, principles and process within an open planning approach. This paper further provides a review of existing business case development processes and capacity planning tools that are prevalent in healthcare strategic planning and operations management, but not so in adaptability research. Scalability as a concept that can bridge the healthcare and estates infrastructure domains is also introduced

Strategic asset management: relating to open building concepts

Healthcare services are provided in increasingly complex environments which are driven by multifaceted internal activities and the management of the physical assets is vital for efficient delivery of these services. Healthcare estates planning are supported by Trusts’: Strategic Service Development Plan (SSDP); Strategic Outline Case (SOC); Commissioners Investment & Asset Management Strategy (CIAMS); Estates Code; service specifications along with programme management; and investment appraisal and planning. This paper aims to explore current approaches and develop an approach to Strategic Asset Management using open building concepts that can be applied to healthcare projects to enable a flexible estates response to service redesign, technology innovation and changing business demands. This is achieved through collation and comparison of these approaches to identify existing gaps and inform how open thinking can transform business case procedures for estates planning and assist in the strategic evaluation of healthcare assets

An open value-based perspective to healthcare building

AIM. This paper aims to build a conceptual relationship between value and open building and scenario planning to aid the assesment of healthcare infrastructures over the short, medium and long term and against dynamically changing contexts. BACKGROUND. Faced with the current financial climate, organisations often find themselves debating the impact of short-term economic pressures, at the expense of planning the strategic long-term sustainability and value of their physical assets. Existing decision making and stakeholder consultation approaches are inadequate and as such an open and dynamic value-based approach to scenario planning is required that will capitalise on the benefits of standardisation, customisation and learning. METHODOLOGY. This paper is supported by a critical and comparative review of health infrastructure, value management and open building literature to understand similarities and differences. It also reports on a workshop with academics and industry professionals and coins open planning and open building. IMPLICATIONS. Value is an important concept in open scenario planning and building. Furthermore, a new method of categorising open value as benefits, sacrifices and resources is trialled