Thyroid hormones are well known important to be in development and growth in birds and that signaling of thyrotropin (TSH) regulates the photo induced seasonal reproduction. A mutation at the thyroid stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) gene in domestic breeds of chicken could be involved in the release of the photoperiodic regulation. Furthermore, TSH can affect a wide range of domestication related phenotypes, such as behaviour, growth rate and pigmentation. The aim of this study was to investigate the behaviours expressed in the different genotypes on the TSHR gene in chickens. Four standard tests were conducted, aerial predator, fear of human, social dominance and tonic immobility. An advanced intercross line of chickens between red junglefowl and White leghorn was used. Male domestic type chickens explored more, showed more less fear behaviours and showed least fear behaviours in the fear of human test. Increased activity and flight response has been interpreted as a lower fear response, which is in line with this study. The wild type chickens showed more social dominance than domestic type chickens which are in line with previous results. In tonic immobility there was a difference between the wild type male and heterozygous male chickens in latency until first head movement. The conclusion of this study is that there is a difference between the wild type and domestic type chickens. This indicates that the TSHR gene is involved in behavioural changes during domestication, but whether it is due to passive or active selection is the question.

This experimental study examined whether a humanitarian and a dominant interviewing style, respectively, had any causal effect on 146 interviewees’ memory performance, as well as the interviewees’ psychological well-being. Independent-samples t-tests showed that participants interviewed in a humanitarian style reported a larger amount of information altogether, including, as defined, more peripheral and central information, compared to those interviewed in a dominant style. The amount of false reported information was statistically invariable regardless of interviewing style. A mixed between-within analysis of variance showed an interaction effect between the interviewing style and the interviewees’ anxiety level before and after interview, thus, partly supporting the hypothesis that a humanitarian interviewing style promotes greater psychological well-being among interviewees. Factors influencing the results are discussed, including the main implications, which are that a humanitarian interviewing style promotes rapport building and provides the interviewees with adequate time to find retrieval paths and cues to memories.

No description available.

One strategy for conserving biodiversity is to select large-area preserves that complement each other so the maximum number of species is conserved. Estimates of biodiversity and complementarity are needed for optimum selection of preserves. Comparisons are made in part by defining and mapping vegetation associations under the assumption that candidate areas with no associations in common likely have high complementarity. Conversely, areas with many associations in common have low complementarity. Vegetation associations are often distinguished on the basis of the dominant plant species. Associations with markedly different dominants (e.g., evergreen and deciduous trees) are expected to indicate high complementarity. In this study I evaluated the complementarity of an evergreen forest and a deciduous forest. I also evaluated a dichotomy of subsoil texture. I compared 6 groups of species: (1) woody plants (Dicotyledonae), (2) birds (Aves), (3) small mammals (Mammalia) plus herptiles (Amphibia) and (Reptilia), (4) beetles(Coleoptera), (5) ants (Formicidae) plus velvet ants (Mutillidae), and (6) spiders (Araneae). I made the comparisons using canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), redundancy analysis (RDA), logistic regression, and 3 indices of biodiversity. In this study the species of dominant tree was more strongly associated with the distribution of species than was soil texture. Dominant tree and soil texture used together greatly improved the association with the distribution of species. The association defined by the dominant evergreen tree was not different than the association defined by the dominant deciduous tree, based on the criteria that an association is defined as having a Jaccard similarity index between 0.25 and 0.5. Similarities >0.5, as in this case, are too similar to be an association and are termed a subassociation. Evergreen forests and deciduous forests do not necessarily have high complementarity. Different dominant plant species do not necessarily define different associations. Dominant plant species are not necessarily useful in defining associations or higher-level classifications.

I have investigated the social grooming in kinship, rank, age and seasonal change among adult female Formosan macaques (Macaca cyclopis) that inhabit Mt. Longevity, Kaohsiung. The major study groups were C and Cd groups. Field observations were conducted from August 2000 to February 2003 covering three mating seasons and two non-mating seasons. The observations covered a total of 188 work days including 1248.8 hours. I actually had recorded C group for 660.6 hours, and Cd group for 244.5 hours. During my study, C group consisted of 8-13 adult males and 14-15 adult females, while group Cd had 1-3 adult males and 2-4 adult females. In order to analyze grooming data, I divided 15 adult females into sub-groups such as dominant/ submissive groups, old (>13) /young age (5-12), relative higher/lower ranking and related/unrelated. I have also divided adult males into troop-males and periphery males. Adult female allo-grooming activities accounted for 37.62% ¡Ó 13.59 (n = 15) of the behaviors in the daytime. I also found that adult females grooming infants and juveniles were greater than received from them (p < 0.001). The social grooming among adult females occurred mainly during non-mating seasons and its frequency was 2.12 times of mating seasons. Regardless of mating or non-mating seasons, the frequency of grooming among related females was significantly higher than among unrelated females (both p < 0.001). In addition, kinship affected the grooming frequency among female macaques with relative lower or higher ranking females during mating seasons (p < 0.05), while the dominant rank did not have the effect. However, the highest grooming frequency occurred in the high-ranking females who groomed relative lower ranking females within relatives (0.38 ¡Ó 0.40 bouts / 100 scans, n = 7). During non-mating seasons, kinship affected the grooming frequency among female macaques with relative lower ranking females (p < 0.05); the highest grooming frequency occurred in the old females who groomed relative lower ranking females within relatives (1.57 ¡Ó 1.74 bouts / 100 scans, n = 8). Moreover, seasons (mating or non-mating) and kinship relationship had significant effects on grooming frequencies among female macaques (both giving and receiving p < 0.01), as well as on the grooming frequency of females groomed with relative lower ranking females (p < 0.01). The highest grooming frequency occurred on females groomed with relative lower ranking females within relatives during non-mating seasons (1.25 ¡Ó 1.48 bouts / 100 scans, n = 11). Without kinship relationship, low-ranking females groomed relative higher ranking females more frequent than high-ranking females did (p < 0.05). Within adult females, 65% of social grooming was among relatives. However, 40% of adult females groomed equally with related and unrelated females, while 20% disproportionately groomed more with unrelated females than with related females. The grooming was kin-biased for 40%. About 8.68% of social grooming among unrelated females was being reciprocated. On the other hand, the ratio of related grooming female partners to the total number of available related females was higher than that with unrelated females (p < 0.05). It also indicated that the ratio of each female received grooming from high-ranking grooming partners was higher than that from low-ranking females (p < 0.01).On the other hand, the ratio of the number of old or young grooming partners of adult females had similar values. The grooming frequency of adult females gave or received from adult males during mating seasons was higher than non-mating seasons (both p < 0.05) while high-rank females groomed adult males more than low-rank females did. The socionomic sex ratios of these two social groups were similar during mating seasons (AM:AF = 1:1.8). Both troop and periphery males had significantly higher frequency of social grooming with adult females in mating seasons than in non-mating seasons. The types of males and social groups had significant effects on the allogrooming frequency among adult males in mating seasons (p < 0.05) but not in non-mating seasons (p > 0.1). Moreover, troop males had higher grooming partners than periphery males. Major grooming partners of troop males were adult females regardless of the seasons. Subordinate males were mostly the receivers in the grooming dyads with dominant males in the mating seasons, but the relationships changed during non-mating seasons. Agonistic interactions occurred mainly during mating seasons and its frequency among periphery males was 1.8 times of troop males (p < 0.05). The preference grooming sites between allo-grooming and auto-grooming of C and Cd groups had varied significantly (p < 0.001). The back region was the preferred grooming site in allo-grooming of C and Cd group and the ano-genital region was the least groomed site. In auto-grooming, monkeys paid much attention to the legs ignoring the back and face. The result indicated that when the adult individuals groomed the head, back and face which showed significant difference in the frequency among AM and AF (p < 0.05). The related female adults groomed head more frequently than unrelated female adults (p < 0.05), but dominance rank and age-class did not apparently affect the corresponding values for the frequency of grooming sites among adult females (both p > 0.1). The results indicated that social grooming among adult females took place more often during non-mating seasons, and more often in kin-related females than unrelated females. Moreover, the dominant females were likely to groom related females. Therefore social grooming among kin-related females may reinforce relationships while reciprocal grooming of unrelated females may serve to form alliance or ranking promotion in the social group. On the other hand, social grooming between adult male and female macaques more frequent in mating seasons than in non-mating seasons. This showed that adult male Formosan macaques employed complex strategies to achieve reproductive success. Nonetheless, the periphery males had more male grooming partners than troop males did which seemingly to enhance male coalitions.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Psychologie et psychopathologie clinique : Paris 8 : 2007. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. f. 322-375.

<p>Female social dominance over males is unusual in mammals, yet characterizes most Malagasy lemurs, which represent almost 30% of all primates. Despite its prevalence in this suborder, both the evolutionary trajectory and proximate mechanism of female dominance remain unclear. Potentially associated with female dominance is a suite of behavioral, physiological and morphological traits in females that implicates ‘masculinization’ via androgen exposure; however, relative to conspecific males, female lemurs curiously show little evidence of raised androgen concentrations. In order to illuminate the proximate mechanisms underlying female dominance in lemurs, I observed mixed‐sex pairs of related Eulemur species, and identified two key study groups ‐‐ one comprised of species expressing female dominance and, the other comprised of species (from a recently evolved clade) showing equal status between the sexes (hereafter ‘egalitarian’). Comparing females from these two groups, to test the hypothesis that female dominance is an expression of an overall masculinization of the female, I 1) characterize the expression of female dominance, aggression, affiliation, and olfactory communication in Eulemur; 2) provide novel information about the hormonal and neuroendocrine correlates associated with the expression of female dominance; 3) investigate the activational role of the sex-steroid hormones in adult female Eulemur using seasonal correlates of hormonal and behavioral change; and 4) examine the specific role of estrogen in the regulation and expression of sex-reversed female behavior in these species. In doing so I highlight significant behavioral and physiological differences between female-dominant and egalitarian Eulemur and show that female dominance is associated with a more masculine behavioral and hormonal profile. I also suggest that these behavioral and hormonal differences may be the result of fundamental differences in the biosynthetic pathway associated with estrogen production. Moreover, I assert that these putative physiological differences could provide a parsimonious proximate mechanism explaining the evolution of female dominance and its subsequent relaxation in egalitarian Eulemur species.</p> / Dissertation

Referential null objects are attested in several varieties of Spanish that are in contact with other languages. Some of them coexist with languages with rich agreement system, e.g., Spanish in contact with Quechua and Basque (cf., e.g., Landa 1995; Franco 1993; Sánchez 1998). The availability of such null objects is thought to be due to some type of transfer from the contact language. As such, bilingualism and language dominance are relevant in determining whether or not a speaker drops objects. One objective of this work is to examine the Spanish language forms of Basque-Spanish speakers of disparate levels of Spanish and Basque abilities, with the aim of determining the role of dominance in the occurrence of null objects. Results obtained from naturalistic data contradict previous claims on dominance. Statistical analysis concludes that dominance is not a factor that determines the occurrence of null objects. Furthermore, closer analysis of the data suggests that these findings challenge previous hypotheses regarding the semantic nature that licenses null objects. Data conflicts with claims on animacy being the feature that allows object drop demonstrating that the picture is less clear than suggested in earlier proposals. / text

Santrauka. Dominavimo samprata pagal EB Sutarties 82 straipsnį ir jo nustatymo problematika Šiame magistro darbe nagrinėjama Europos Bendrijos konkurencijos teisėje įtvirtinta dominuojančios padėties koncepcija. Darbo tikslas – atskleisti dominavimo sampratos bei nustatymo ypatumus, identifikuojant dažniausiai sutinkamas problemas. Išskiriami tokie dominavimo tipai, kaip vienasmenis dominavimas, kolektyvinis, bei superdominavimas. Ypatingas dėmesys skiriamas dominavimo koncepcijos plėtojimo tendencijoms, atsižvelgiant į šiuo metu Komisijos pradėtą EB Sutarties 82 straipsnio reformą. Darbe koncentruojamasi į Bendrijos teismų bei Europos Komisijos suformuluotą praktiką šia tema bei galimus taikymo praktikos pasikeitimus. Tačiau kartu vertinamos ir Lietuvos konkurencijos teisėje nusistovėjusios taisyklės, kurios reglamentuoja ūkio subjektų dominavimą. Atsižvelgiant į tai, kad Lietuva yra įsipareigojusi suderinti savo nacionalinę teisę su Europos Bendrijos acquis communautaire, įskaitant ir konkurencijos teisės taisykles, siekiant įvertinti, ar Lietuvoje galiojančios konkurencijos teisės normos atitinka Europos Bendrijos taisykles dominavimo padėties aspektu. / Summary. Dominance Under Article 82 of the EC Treaty and the Problems of Its Finding This study is devoted to the analysis of the conception of dominance in the European Community competition law. The objective of this study is to ascertain the main features of the aspects of dominance, including its finding problems. The analysis presents such types of dominance as single dominance, collective dominance and super-dominance. Particular attention is given to the research of the possible changes of the concept of dominance, subject to the process of modernization of application of Article 82 EC. It is concentrated to the practice of the European Community courts and the European Commission. However Lithuanian competition law, which regulates dominance, is also examined. Considering the undertaking to approximate Lithuanian national competition law to acquis communautaire of the European Union, the study labours for answering, whether the competition rules, established in Lithuania correspond to the European Community competition law in the light of dominance.

This study investigated the effects of hemisphericity and field dependence on programming skills. Twenty-five undergraduate university students from two introductory Logo programming courses completed the study. Results suggested that hemisphericity is related to the complexity of program structure (tree depth). Supplementary analyses indicated a negative correlation between previous programming experience and the use of recursion. Implications for education and suggestions for further research are discussed, and specific implications regarding the teaching of Logo are given.