Badgers are facultatively social, forming large groups at high density. Group-living appears to have high reproductive costs for females, and may lead to increased levels of inbreeding. The extent of female competition for reproduction has been estimated from field data, but knowledge of male reproductive success and the extent of extra-group paternity remains limited. Combining field data with...

1. Costs and benefits of reproduction are central to life-history theory, and the outcome of reproductive trade-offs may depend greatly on the ecological conditions in which they are estimated. In this study, we propose that costs and benefits of reproduction are modulated by social effects, and consequently that selection on reproductive rates depends on the social environment. 2. We tested th...

Inequality of educational opportunities underlies the reproduction of social inequalities and deepens the gap of classes. The origin of the class can be one of the effective factors involved in. The aim of this paper is the study of the impact of family background on inequality of educational opportunities among students. We used the survey method and a questionnaire. We collected needed inform...

Social distancing practices are changes in behavior that prevent disease transmission by reducing contact rates between susceptible individuals and infected individuals who may transmit the disease. Social distancing practices can reduce the severity of an epidemic, but the benefits of social distancing depend on the extent to which it is used by individuals. Individuals are sometimes reluctant...

If a honeybee (Apis mellifera) colony loses its queen, worker bees develop their ovaries and produce male offspring [1]. Kin selection theory predicts that the degree of altruism in queenless colonies should be reduced because the relatedness of workers to a hivemate's offspring is less in queenless colonies than it is to the daughters of the queen in queenright colonies [2-4]. To explore this ...

BACKGROUND To analyse the cross-sectional association between coping responses with infertility and occupational social class. Infertility is evenly distributed across social classes in Denmark, and there is free access to high-quality assisted reproduction technology. METHODS Data were based on a questionnaire in a consecutive sample of 1169 women and 1081 Danish men who were about to begin ...

OBJECTIVE We present a model for the 2009 influenza epidemic in Mexico to describe the observed pattern of the epidemic from March through the end of August (before the onset of the expected winter epidemic) in terms of the reproduction number and social isolation measures. MATERIAL AND METHODS The model uses a system of ordinary differential equations. Computer simulations are performed to o...

In highly social species, dominant individuals often monopolize reproduction, resulting in reproductive investment that is status dependent. Yet, for subordinates, who typically invest less in reproduction, social status can change and opportunities to ascend to dominant social positions are presented suddenly, requiring abrupt changes in behaviour and physiology. In this study, we examined mal...

This paper examines the economic welfare implications of mortality change within a framework that both recognizes general equilibrium effects and incorporates full age-specific accounting. Two formal results are derived. Under a life-cycle welfare criterion, changes in the agepattern of mortality, caused say by a medical breakthrough, should be assessed on the utility of additional life-years, ...