Browsing by Subject "Competition"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Mating Competitiveness of Transgenic Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) Males Against Wild-Type Males Reared Under Simulated Field Conditions
    (Oxford University Press, 2020-11-13) Kang, David S.; Cunningham, Joanne M.; Lovin, Diane D.; Chadee, Dave D.; Severson, David W.; Medical and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine
    Efforts directed at genetic modification of mosquitoes for population control or replacement are highly dependent on the initial mating success of transgenic male mosquitoes following their release into natural populations. Adult mosquito phenotypes are influenced by the environmental conditions experienced as larvae. Semifield studies conducted to date have not taken that under consideration when testing male mating fitness, and have compared mating success of males reared under identical environmental conditions. We performed pairwise mating challenges between males from a genetically modified laboratory strain (BF2) versus males from a recent Trinidad field isolate of Aedes aegypti (L.), a major vector of multiple arboviruses. We utilized larval density and nutrition to simulate environmental stress experienced by the Trinidad males and females. Our results indicated that environmental stress during larval development negatively influenced the competitiveness and reproductive success of males from the Trinidad population when paired with optimum reared BF2 males. Small (0.027 m3) and large (0.216 m3) trials were conducted wherein stressed or optimum Trinidad males competed with optimum BF2 males for mating with stressed Trinidad females. When competing with stress reared Trinidad males, optimum reared BF2 males were predominant in matings with stress reared Trinidad females, and large proportions of these females mated with males of both strains. When competing with optimum reared Trinidad males, no difference in mating success was observed between them and BF2 males, and frequencies of multiple matings were low. Our results indicate that future mating competition studies should incorporate appropriate environmental conditions when designing mating fitness trials of genetically modified males.
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    NATO, Russia and the Ukraine Crisis
    (2016-10) Frix, Noëlie; Pegg, Scott
    This paper seeks to answer the theoretical question: Do international organizations (IOs) bring peace and stability to international relations? The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) serves as a case study which can help answer this query. Initially, it is important to explore what realist and liberal scholars broadly argue on the matter of IOs, peace and stability. NATO as an organization is then examined, followed by the case study of the role it played in the Ukraine crisis. Many international organizations exist today which deal with a wide variety of issues. The League of Nations, though it failed to fulfill its mandate of maintaining worldwide peace, can be considered the first modern international organization and served as the model for its successor, the United Nations. Realists—who argue that states are the principal actor in international relations (IR) and that they are self-interested and mainly concerned with security and power—look upon IOs skeptically. Liberals, though, believe in cooperation among states and promote the proliferation of international organizations, extolling their virtues. The heated debate between these two ideologies is evident in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastward expansion. NATO was originally designed to curb the Soviet threat and protect Western Europe from communist expansion. When the Cold War ended and NATO’s original mandate had therefore expired, liberals championed the continued existence and expansion of the organization. Realists, on the other hand, warned of negative repercussions, as they foresaw that eastward expansion of the alliance would be perceived as a threat by Russia. The 2014 Ukraine crisis provides a good case study which can help determine whether liberals or realists were right. Liberals have claimed that Russian aggression in the region justifies NATO expansion. Realists, however, have argued that it is the very fact of actual and prospective NATO expansion which has caused this aggression in the first place.
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    What the trial of Socrates teaches about the difference between winning and excellence
    (The Conversation US, Inc., 2015-04-17) Gunderman, Richard; Radiology and Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine