Development of Multiple Polymorphic Microsatellite Markers for Ceratina calcarata (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Using Genome-Wide Analysis

The small carpenter bee, Ceratina calcarata (Robertson), is a widespread native pollinator across eastern North America. The behavioral ecology and nesting biology of C. calcarata has been relatively well-studied and the species is emerging as a model organism for both native pollinator and social evolution research. C. calcarata is subsocial: reproductively mature females provide extended maternal care to their brood. As such, studies of C. calcarata may also reveal patterns of relatedness and demography unique to primitively social Hymenoptera. Here, we present 21 microsatellite loci, isolated from the recently completed C. calcarata genome. Screening in 39 individuals across their distribution revealed that no loci were in linkage disequilibrium, nor did any deviate significantly from Hardy-Weinberg following sequential Bonferroni correction. Allele count ranged from 2 to 14, and observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.08 to 0.82 (mean 0.47) and 0.26 to 0.88 (mean 0.56), respectively. These markers will enable studies of population-wide genetic structuring across C. calcarata’s distribution. Such tools will also allow for exploration of between and within-colony relatedness in this subsocial native pollinator

MEI for All! or Lowering the Barrier to Music Encoding through Digital Pedagogy

Over approximately the last decade, the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI), has become a recognized international community-driven effort that has developed and maintains the MEI schema, standards, and shared documentation. The potential of machine-readable music data that can be reused, rendered, shared, or analyzed using a computer, is quite appealing, however the reality is that various barriers exist for people who may be interested in creating or using encoded music data for the first time. One approach to lowering barriers is through digital pedagogy, in which the focus is “specifically on the use of technology to break down learning barriers and enhance students’ learning experiences.” In addition to teaching MEI via online tutorials or workshops, students and scholars* should consider approaching the MEI through the lens of digital pedagogy or more specifically critical pedagogy, which emphasizes and overlaps with many of the tenets that make up the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Critical pedagogy encourages questions around authority and power structures, for instance: why was MEI created and for whom, whose music is being encoded, who has access to the data, when/why should we use MEI, what type of infrastructure is necessary for MEI work, and so on. Encouraging and engaging in conversations with students and scholars about the affordances of MEI is equally valuable as is the act of creating encoded music data or full-on MEI projects

Applying Contingent Valuation Method for Economic Valuation of Awqaf Wealth Management in Welfare Changes of Muslim Households In

Objective- The main objective of this study is to estimate the Willingness to Pay of the Muslim households to contribute cash waqf as a strategy towards wealth management in Sri Lanka. Waqf is holding or confinement which is emphasised in Islam as ibadah as it can distribute the wealth among the Muslim society and would help to develop the Islamic vision of brotherhood.Method- Contingent valuation method is used to estimate the Willingness to Pay of Muslim households to improve socio-economic status of the low income people through waqf wealth management in Sri Lanka. This study is developed based on Random Utility Theory.Result- This paper identifies the appropriate methods to estimate the willingness to pay of Muslim households in Sri Lanka for waqf (awqaf is plural) institutions. Such evaluations are crucial for the Islamic financial system to function effectively in order to achieve the dignified objectives of socio-economic justice through proper distribution of wealth.Conclusion-This paper presents a conceptual model of waqf institutions which would be useful for further empirical research in this area. The findings are not only appropriate and applicable to Sri Lanka but also to other Muslim and non-Muslim countries. This is a unique contribution to the Islamic economic literature. The knowledge obtained from this study hopes to propose cash waqf to manage the wealth in order to improve the socio-economic status of low income people in Sri Lanka.Tujuan - Tujuan utama dari penelitian ini adalah untuk memperkirakan Kemauan Membayar rumah tangga Muslim untuk berkontribusi wakaf tunai sebagai strategi menuju pengelolaan kekayaan di Sri Lanka. Wakaf secara bahasa menahan (harta) yang ditekankan dalam Islam sebagai ibadah karena dapat mendistribusikan kekayaan di antara masyarakat Muslim dan akan membantu untuk mengembangkan visi Islam yaitu persaudaraan.Metode - Metode penilaian Kontingensi digunakan untuk memperkirakan Kesediaan membayar rumah tangga Muslim dalam meningkatkan status sosial - ekonomi masyarakat berpenghasilan rendah melalui pengelolaan kekayaan wakaf di Sri Lanka. Penelitian ini dikembangkan berdasarkan Teori Utilitas Acak.Hasil - Paper ini mengidentifikasi metode yang tepat untuk memperkirakan kemauan membayar rumah tangga Muslim di Sri Lanka untuk wakaf lembaga. Evaluasi tersebut sangat penting untuksistem keuangan Islam yang berfungsi secara efektif dalam rangka mencapai tujuan yang bermartabat keadilan sosial - ekonomi melalui distribusi kekayaan yang tepat.Kesimpulan - Paper ini menyajikan model konseptual lembaga wakaf yang akan berguna untuk penelitian empiris lebih lanjut di daerah ini. Temuan ini tidak hanya tepat dan berlaku untuk Sri Lanka, tetapi juga ke negara-negara Muslim dan non -Muslim lainnya. Ini adalah kontribusi yang unik untuk literatur ekonomi Islam. Pengetahuan yang diperoleh dari studi ini adalah mengharapkan agar wakaf tunai diusulkan untuk mengelola kekayaan dalam rangka meningkatkan status sosial - ekonomi masyarakat berpenghasilan rendah di Sri Lanka

An Evolution Process For Service-Oriented Systems

Evolution of service-oriented systems is quite a new research area, which becomesmore and more important as engineering challenges move from enablingservice-orientation onto the maintenance and evolution of already developedservice-oriented systems. However, the development of suitable evolution processesand methodologies is still an open research problem. The evolution processpresented in this paper has been designed to address the evolution of serviceorientedsystems, which are technically built out of a set of service compositions.The presented process comprises phases and tasks compliant with ISO 20000.The underlying model of service-oriented system consisting of business processesand corresponding service composition models has also been presented. A traceabilitymodel and tools supporting change impact analysis have also beenprovisioned for. Preliminary industrial validation indicates that the evolutionprocess should be easy to adapt by the industry

The Influence of Cognitive Biases on Architectural Technical Debt

Cognitive biases exert a significant influence on human thinking and decision-making. In order to identify how they influence the occurrence of architectural technical debt, a series of semi-structured interviews with software architects was performed. The results show which classes of architectural technical debt originate from cognitive biases, and reveal the antecedents of technical debt items (classes) through biases. This way, we analysed how and when cognitive biases lead to the creation of technical debt. We also identified a set of debiasing techniques that can be used in order to prevent the negative influence of cognitive biases. The observations of the role of organisational culture in the avoidance of inadvertent technical debt throw a new light on that issue.Comment: Presented at 2021 IEEE 18th International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA) 202

Wokół książki uczonych rostowskich

Recenzja książki: Nina A. Kazarova, Sarkis S. Kazarov, Victoria V. Łobova, Istoriki Varšavskogo Universiteta. Vremja i sud’by, Wydawnictwo Južnogo Federalnogo Universiteta, Rostov-na-Donu 2014, 192 s

The Life of Teresa Carreño (1853–1917), a Venezuelan Prodigy and Acclaimed Artist

This biography of Teresa Carreño (1853–1917) is excerpted from the forthcoming book, The Life and Music of Teresa Carreño (1853–1917): A Guide to Research (A-R Editions), which is a survey of extant primary sources, criticism, compositions, and recordings from Carreño's career. The aim of this biography and forthcoming book is to examine, or in many cases re-examine, the primary and secondary sources that can provide a deeper historical context to Carreño's legacy as a composer and pianist, and bring greater visibility to her musical contributions. Correspondence, newspaper articles or reviews, legal documents, and other sources were closely examined and provide details that may have been overlooked or excluded from earlier biographical writings about Carreño. The biography provides an overview of Carreño's career from musical prodigy—composing and performing by the age of eight—to an internationally acclaimed artist in the 1910s. Important personal and professional relationships that impacted her deeply, such as those with Frances MacDowell and Regina Watson, are discussed. Her concert repertoire selections and details about performances over the course of her career are selectively examined in order to shed light on performance and reception practices during this period. Woven into the narrative are important moments from Carreño's life that demonstrate the challenges and choices she had to make as a professional musician who was also a mother, wife, and friend

W służbie Chrystusowi. Błogosławieni prezbiterzy i osoby zakonne Archidiecezji Poznańskiej

The subject-matter of the article is the issue of sanctity which the author considers in the context of the lives of seven men and one woman. All of them belong to the Poznań Church. Their heroic lives provide an opportunity to scrutinize contemporary culture, which is characterized by a process of disenchantment of the world, i.e. humanization of what formerly used to be divine, what belonged to God or led to Him. Today we witness a tendency to sanctify things human, things which are the work of man and enhance human pleasure, enjoyment of life and cheerful disposition... At the same time things divine and those that lead to God are dismissed or even forgotten.Modern man has become increasingly autonomous. He no longer needs God seeing Him as unwanted or even redundant. Prayer, which animates saints, is now considered mere waste of time while obedience to God’s commandments is deemed ridiculous. This process also impacts our attitude to the saints. In Christian theology they are the teachers of the faith, witnesses of God and His truth. They are the good Samaritans that lift up those who fell, reminding them of their dignity received from God and encouraging them to go ahead to meet God. But many of our contemporaries, believ- ers included, no longer perceive saints in this way. They do not expect from the saints lessons on life, but miracles in order to have a rich, healthy and happy life themselves. They look for miracle workers not witnesses and teachers of God’s truth, the prophets of a different world. As God’s wit- nesses the blessed and saints can “hold back” the process of disenchantment of the world and give the world a new eschatological dimension, the lost sacrum without which life on earth can change into a drama.The subject-matter of the article is the issue of sanctity which the author considers in the context of the lives of seven men and one woman. All of them belong to the Poznań Church. Their heroic lives provide an opportunity to scrutinize contemporary culture, which is characterized by a process of disenchantment of the world, i.e. humanization of what formerly used to be divine, what belonged to God or led to Him. Today we witness a tendency to sanctify things human, things which are the work of man and enhance human pleasure, enjoyment of life and cheerful disposition... At the same time things divine and those that lead to God are dismissed or even forgotten.Modern man has become increasingly autonomous. He no longer needs God seeing Him as unwanted or even redundant. Prayer, which animates saints, is now considered mere waste of time while obedience to God’s commandments is deemed ridiculous. This process also impacts our attitude to the saints. In Christian theology they are the teachers of the faith, witnesses of God and His truth. They are the good Samaritans that lift up those who fell, reminding them of their dignity received from God and encouraging them to go ahead to meet God. But many of our contemporaries, believ- ers included, no longer perceive saints in this way. They do not expect from the saints lessons on life, but miracles in order to have a rich, healthy and happy life themselves. They look for miracle workers not witnesses and teachers of God’s truth, the prophets of a different world. As God’s wit- nesses the blessed and saints can “hold back” the process of disenchantment of the world and give the world a new eschatological dimension, the lost sacrum without which life on earth can change into a drama