Digital Commons Network^™

Hunter-Gatherer Inter-Band Interaction Rates: Implications For Cumulative Culture, Kim R. Hill, Brian M. Wood, Jacopo A. Baggio, A. Magdalena Hurtado, Robert T. Boyd

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Our species exhibits spectacular success due to cumulative culture. While cognitive evolution of social learning mechanisms may be partially responsible for adaptive human culture, features of early human social structure may also play a role by increasing the number potential models from which to learn innovations. We present interview data on interactions between same-sex adult dyads of Ache and Hadza hunter-gatherers living in multiple distinct residential bands (20 Ache bands; 42 Hadza bands; 1201 dyads) throughout a tribal home range. Results show high probabilities (5%–29% per year) of cultural and cooperative interactions between randomly chosen adults. Multiple regression suggests that …

"Wake Up The Knowledge That You Have": An Assessment Of Community Food Security In Fellsmere, Florida, Susan Marie Tyler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the global industrial agricultural system many people lack access to high-quality nutritious foods and food production techniques are often inefficient and reliant on harsh chemical inputs. While numerous strategies exist to address the disparities present in the global food system, increasingly researchers and practitioners are looking to local food systems for solutions to strengthen community food security (CFS). CFS emphasizes small-scale production strategies such as farmer's markets, community gardens, and consumer supported agriculture. As these efforts evolve, research is needed to understand how these strategies affect communities. To explore a local CFS initiative, qualitative data were collected from community …

Can Anyone With Low Income Be Food Secure?: Mitigating Food Insecurity Among Low Income Households With Children In The Tampa Bay Area, Edgar Allan Amador

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the US over the last few years, approximately 14.5% of households experience food insecurity at some point throughout the year. While studies on food insecurity in the US have determined that household income and specifically income available to spend on food is of critical importance to food security, it is still unclear why some households with low income are able to maintain food security while others experience food insecurity in a pattern characterized as not constant but recurrent. This dissertation compares households with children at different levels of food security and insecurity using the USDA Core Food Security Module …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 55 Number 4, Summer 2014, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

20 - A DAY WITH THE DALAI LAMA photos by Charles Barry, Noah Berger, and Michael Collopy . Close-ups and long views from the spiritual leader’s Feb. 24 visit.

24 - THE CATHOLIC WRITER TODAY by Dana Gioia. The poet, critic, and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts argues that Catholic writers must renovate and reoccupy their own tradition. At stake: the diversity and vitality of the American arts.

38 - OUR STORIES AND THE THEATRE OF AWE an interview with Marilynne Robinson. The Pulitzer Prize–winning writer speaks with Editor Steven Boyd Saum about grace, discernment, and …

Public Attitudes Toward Animal Research: A Review, Elisabeth H. Ormandy, Catherine A. Schuppli

Attitudes Toward Animal Research Collection

The exploration of public attitudes toward animal research is important given recent developments in animal research (e.g., increasing creation and use of genetically modified animals, and plans for progress in areas such as personalized medicine), and the shifting relationship between science and society (i.e., a move toward the democratization of science). As such, public engagement on issues related to animal research, including exploration of public attitudes, provides a means of achieving socially acceptable scientific practice and oversight through an understanding of societal values and concerns. Numerous studies have been conducted to explore public attitudes toward animal use, and more specifically …

Ruminant Self-Medication Against Gastrointestinal Nematodes: Evidence, Mechanism, And Origins, Juan J. Villalba, James Miller, Eugene D. Ungar, Serge Y. Landau, John Glendinning

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Gastrointestinal helminths challenge ruminants in ways that reduce their fitness. In turn, ruminants have evolved physiological and behavioral adaptations that counteract this challenge. Ruminants display anorexia and avoidance behaviors, which tend to reduce the incidence of parasitism. In addition, ruminants appear to learn to self-medicate against gastrointestinal parasites by increasing consumption of plant secondary compounds with antiparasitic actions. This selective feeding improves health and fitness. Here, we review the evidence for self-medication in ruminants, propose a hypothesis to explain self-medicative behaviors (based on post-ingestive consequences), and discuss mechanisms (e.g., enhanced neophilia, social transmission) that may underlie the ontogeny and spread …

Early Back-To-Africa Migration Into The Horn Of Africa, Jason A. Hodgson, Connie J. Mulligan, Ali Al-Meeri, Ryan L. Raaum

Publications and Research

Genetic studies have identified substantial non-African admixture in the Horn of Africa (HOA). In the most recent genomic studies, this non-African ancestry has been attributed to admixture with Middle Eastern populations during the last few thousand years. However, mitochondrial and Y chromosome data are suggestive of earlier episodes of admixture. To investigate this further, we generated new genome-wide SNP data for a Yemeni population sample and merged these new data with published genome-wide genetic data from the HOA and a broad selection of surrounding populations. We used multidimensional scaling and ADMIXTURE methods in an exploratory data analysis to develop hypotheses …

Human Diversity In Jordan: Polymorphic Alu Insertions In General Jordanian And Bedouin Groups, Daniela Zanetti, May Sadiq, Robert Carreras-Torres, Omar Khabour, Almuthanna Alkaraki, Esther Esteban, Marc Via, Pedro Moral

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Jordan, located in the Levant region, is a crucial area to investigate human migration between Africa and Eurasia. Even thought, the genetic history of Jordanians is far to be clarified including the origin of the Bedouins today resident in Jordan. Here, we provide new genetic data on autosomal independent markers in two Jordanian population samples (Bedouins and general population) in order to approach the genetic diversity inside this country and to give new information about the genetic position of these populations in the frame of the Mediterranean and Middle East area. The analyzed markers are 18 Alu polymorphic insertions characterized …

Lust For Leaves., Janet Bezier

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Acorn : Staple Food From The Past Or Novel Food For The Future? An Investigation Into The Desirability And Acceptability Of Flour Products., Francesco Noci

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Suppressing Desire As Culinary Discipline: Can Culinary Education Be Hedonistic? Should It Be?, Jonathan Deutsch

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

Craving Food : A Multi-Perspective Approach., Róisín Curtin

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Population History On Hominoid Intraspecific Cranial Shape Diversity: Combining Population Genetic And 3d Geometric Morphometric Data, Julia Marie Zichello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cranial shape diversity within hominoids has been previously studied with the aim of understanding how levels of diversity in extant species compare with extinct hominin specimens. This dissertation addresses the question of why cranial shape diversity differs among extant hominoids. Levels of intraspecific cranial shape diversity are highly varied among hominoids. For example, Sumatran orangutan cranial shape diversity is more than twice that of all living humans. Here, the population history of each species, or sub-species, is considered as a force potentially structuring phenotypic variation. It is already well established that population history has shaped patterns of modern human cranial …

A Review Of The Institute Of Medicine’S Analysis Of Using Chimpanzees In Biomedical Research, Robert C. Jones, Ray Greek

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

We argue that the recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report, Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Assessing the Necessity, are methodologically and ethically confused. We argue that a proper understanding of evolution and complexity theory in terms of the science and ethics of using chimpanzees in biomedical research would have had led the committee to recommend not merely limiting but eliminating the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research. Specifically, we argue that a proper understanding of the difference between the gross level of examination of species and examinations on finer levels can shed light on important methodological …

Behaviors That Predict Personality Components In Adult Free-Ranging Tibetan Macaques (Macaca Thibetana), Alexander J. Pritchard, Lori K. Sheeran, Kara I. Gabriel, Jin-Hua Li, Ronald S. Wagner

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

To further the potential for applied personality studies, we present a methodology for assessing personality in nonhuman animals without a priori assumptions, using behavioral measures to discriminate personality survey results. Our study group consisted of 12 free-ranging, provisioned, adult Tibetan macaques (Macaca thibetana) at the Valley of the Wild Monkeys, China. We asked familiar Chinese park guards and scientists to rate each of the 12 macaques using 27-item personality surveys. We also recorded behavioral observations (> 100 hrs) from August–September, 2012. The personality surveys showed reliability in 22 of the items that were then utilized in a principal component analysis …

Questioning The “Melting Pot”: Analysis Of Alu Inserts In Three Population Samples From Uruguay, Pedro C. Hidalgo, Patricia Mut, Elizabeth Ackermann, Gonzalo Figueiro, Monica Sans

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The way that immigrants integrate to recipient societies has been discussed for decades, mainly from the perspective of the social sciences. Uruguay, as other American countries, received different waves of European immigrants, although the details of the process of assimilation, when occurred, are unclear. In this paper, we use genetic markers to understand the process experienced by the Basques, one of the major migration waves that populated Uruguay, and its relation to other immigrants as well as to Native American and African descendants. For this purpose, we analyze the allele frequencies of ten ALU loci (A25, ACE, APOA1, B65, F13B, …

Certain Adenylated Non-Coding Rnas, Including 5′ Leader Sequences Of Primary Microrna Transcripts, Accumulate In Mouse Cells Following Depletion Of The Rna Helicase Mtr4, Jane E. Dorweiler, Ting Ni, Jun Zhu, Stephen Munroe, James T. Anderson

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

RNA surveillance plays an important role in posttranscriptional regulation. Seminal work in this field has largely focused on yeast as a model system, whereas exploration of RNA surveillance in mammals is only recently begun. The increased transcriptional complexity of mammalian systems provides a wider array of targets for RNA surveillance, and, while many questions remain unanswered, emerging data suggest the nuclear RNA surveillance machinery exhibits increased complexity as well. We have used a small interfering RNA in mouse N2A cells to target the homolog of a yeast protein that functions in RNA surveillance (Mtr4p). We used high-throughput sequencing of polyadenylated …

Paleoparasitological Studies On Mummies Of The Joseon Dynasty, Korea, Min Seo, Adauto Araújo, Karl J. Reinhard, Jong Yil Chai, Dong Hoon Shin

Karl Reinhard Publications

Paleoparasitology is the application of conventional or molecular investigative techniques to archeological samples in order to reveal parasitic infection patterns among past populations. Although pioneering studies already have reported key paleoparasitological findings around the world, the same sorts of studies had not, until very recently, been conducted in sufficient numbers in Korea. Mummified remains of individuals dating to the Korean Joseon Dynasty actually have proved very meaningful to concerned researchers, owing particularly to their superb preservation status, which makes them ideal subjects for paleoparasitological studies. Over the past several years, our study series on Korean mummies has yielded very pertinent …

Role Model Fathers Or Deadbeat Dads? A Study Of Peromyscus Paternal Behavior, Taylor Wapshott

Senior Theses

Paternal behavior is a largely understudied and poorly understood topic, especially in mammalian species. Many current mammalian models for paternal behavior use a comparative approach, taking advantage of natural differences in behavior between closely related species. This study compared paternal behavior in two rodent species, namely Peromyscus maniculatus (BW) and Peromyscus polionotus (PO). PO rodents have been shown to be monogamous, but there have been no studies of their paternal behavior at this time. 10 PO males and 12 BW males were filmed in their home cage for a 10 minute period following initial disturbance of their nest and removal …

Reconstructing New World Monkey Phylogeny: Alu Elements In The Common Marmoset Genome, Catherine Fontenot

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Social Learning And The Development Of Social Foraging Behavior In Golden Lion Tamarins (Leontopithecus Rosalia), Carly Slack

All Theses

Golden lion tamarins are highly social, group-living primates and are cooperative breeders. As such they are an ideal species in which to study social learning. Observations of six groups of wild golden lion tamarins were used to examine the development of social foraging and related behaviors in juveniles. Rates at which juveniles approached adults that were foraging for plant foods tended to decline with age (F=3.34, p=.0531), and the rates at which they begged (F=4.71, p=.0193), and foraged at the same site (i.e., co-foraged; F=3.44, p=.0495) decreased significantly. For prey foraging, rates at which adults vacated a site to allow …

Differences In The Communicative Behavior And Neurobiology Of Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes) And Bonobos (Pan Paniscus), Brittany Moore

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Chimpanzees and bonobos have distinctly different vocalizations, but it is unclear why these differences have evolved. We hypothesized that differences in habitat and feeding ecology have selected for bonobos to have an increased reliance on vocal communication compared to chimpanzees. To evaluate this hypothesis 1571 chimpanzee vocal events and 612 bonobo vocal events were analyzed. After analyzing and coding video of communicative interactions it was determined that chimpanzees are more likely than bonobos to utilize multimodal communication and to direct vocalizations to an individual conspecific. Bonobos were more likely than chimpanzees to produce a vocalization that was not bound to …

Craniometric Ancestry Proportions Among Groups Considered Hispanic: Genetic Biological Variation, Sex-Biased Asymmetry, And Forensic Applications, Meredith L. Tise

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today, groups considered Hispanic in the United States consist of populations whose complex genetic structures reflect intermixed diverse groups of people who came in contact during Spanish colonization in Latin America. After coming in contact and wiping out most of the Native Americans who occupied North and Latin America, the Spanish also introduced West African individuals for labor to begin developing crops to be shipped back to Europe, resulting in the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. These migration events and differential gene flow among males and females that occurred throughout Latin America have led to populations that have been genetically transformed …

Snow Monkeys In South Texas, A Thirty Year Study Of Behavioral Adaptation, Lou E. Griffin

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A thirty year study of a transplanted species of primate, Macaca fuscata, Japanese snow monkey, documents the environmental influences on an intact troop relocated from Arashiyama, Japan to south Texas. These influences include novel disease, toxins, and predation. The effects of the environment on the social structure, hierarchy, and population of the primates are presented. The study begins in 1972 and is completed in 2002.

Convergence In Communication Behavior And Brain Morphology In Lizards: An Evolutionary Approach, Christopher D. Robinson

Biology Honors Theses

Animal communication allows information to be transferred from a sender to a receiver, and can occur via visual, chemical, auditory, and tactile modalities. Communication behaviors are known to be generally associated with specific brain regions, but it is currently unknown how the cellular morphology of these regions differs in species that quantitatively differ in the use of particular communication modalities. Further, these relationships are rarely considered in an evolutionary context. In this thesis, I investigated the relationship between the use of communication modalities and neural morphologies (in particular, soma size and density) in the brains of six species of lizards: …

Old Roots: Place-Making And Hybrid Landscapes Of Refugee Urban Farmers, Missy Ward-Lambert

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research project was designed to analyze the relevance of place and the physical environment to the adjustment processes of refugees. This dissertation contains the results of qualitative research with a group of 30 refugee urban farmers living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Seventeen of these individuals—from Burundi, Sudan, Bhutan, the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Cuba—participated in interviews and a photography project focused on their experiences with agriculture in their home countries and since their arrival in Utah. The results of the research show the connection between the refugees’ work as farmers and their …

Taxonomic And Seasonal Variation Among Extant Hyracoids Based On Dental Microwear Texture Analysis, Ann Marie Walcutt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A number of works have been published on habitats and diets of living hyraxes but much remains to be learned about the paleoenvironment contexts of the much larger, more dominant but now extinct forms of the order. Here, I analyze the dental microwear of modern hyraxes to assess dietary and ecological relationships among the four extant species of Procaviidae: Heterohyrax brucei, Procavia capensis, Dendrohyrax arboreus, and Dendrohyrax dorsalis. The purpose of this study was to establish an extant baseline series for the interpretation of microwear texture patterns, and inference of diets, of extinct members of the …

Evolutionary Pressures On Primate Intertemporal Choice, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

From finding food to choosing mates, animals must make intertemporal choices that involve fitness benefits available at different times. Species vary dramatically in their willingness to wait for delayed rewards. Why does this variation across species exist? An adaptive approach to intertemporal choice suggests that time preferences should reflect the temporal problems faced in a species' environment. Here, I use phylogenetic regression to test whether allometric factors (relating to body size), relative brain size, and social group size predict how long 13 primate species will wait in laboratory intertemporal choice tasks. Controlling for phylogeny, a composite allometric factor that includes …

2014 - The Nineteenth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Nineteenth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 17, 2014. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

The Compass, Issue 1, Arcadia University Honors Program

The Compass

Issue 1 of The Compass, a scholarly journal edited and produced by students in the Arcadia University Honors Program.