scholarly journals Sex allocation conflict and sexual selection throughout the lifespan of eusocial colonies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piret Avila ◽  
Lutz Fromhage ◽  
Laurent Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Sex Allocation ◽  
Colony Growth ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Dynamic Resource ◽  
Colony Ontogeny ◽  
Allocation Decisions ◽  
Allocation Strategies

AbstractModels of sex allocation conflict are central to evolutionary biology but have mostly assumed static decisions, where resource allocation strategies are constant over colony lifespan. Here, we develop a model to study how the evolution of dynamic resource allocation strategies is affected by the queen-worker conflict in annual eusocial insects. We demonstrate that the time of dispersal of sexuals affects the sex allocation ratio through sexual selection on males. Furthermore, our model provides three predictions that depart from established results of classic static allocation models. First, we find that the queen wins the sex allocation conflict, while the workers determine the maximum colony size and colony productivity. Second, male-biased sex allocation and protandry evolve if sexuals disperse directly after eclosion. Third, when workers are more related to new queens, then the proportional investment into queens is expected to be lower, which results from the interacting effect of sexual selection (selecting for protandry) and sex allocation conflict (selecting for earlier switch to producing sexuals). Overall, we find that colony ontogeny crucially affects the outcome of sex-allocation conflict because of the evolution of distinct colony growth phases, which decouples how queens and workers affect allocation decisions and can result in asymmetric control.

scholarly journals Balancing scarce hospital resources during the COVID-19 pandemic using discrete-event simulation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.J. Melman ◽  
A.K. Parlikad ◽  
E.A.B. Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Discrete Event Simulation ◽  
Elective Surgery ◽  
Discrete Event ◽  
Specific Patient ◽  
Event Simulation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Allocation Decisions ◽  
Allocation Strategies ◽  
Resource Allocation Decisions

AbstractCOVID-19 has disrupted healthcare operations and resulted in large-scale cancellations of elective surgery. Hospitals throughout the world made life-altering resource allocation decisions and prioritised the care of COVID-19 patients. Without effective models to evaluate resource allocation strategies encompassing COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 care, hospitals face the risk of making sub-optimal local resource allocation decisions. A discrete-event-simulation model is proposed in this paper to describe COVID-19, elective surgery, and emergency surgery patient flows. COVID-19-specific patient flows and a surgical patient flow network were constructed based on data of 475 COVID-19 patients and 28,831 non-COVID-19 patients in Addenbrooke’s hospital in the UK. The model enabled the evaluation of three resource allocation strategies, for two COVID-19 wave scenarios: proactive cancellation of elective surgery, reactive cancellation of elective surgery, and ring-fencing operating theatre capacity. The results suggest that a ring-fencing strategy outperforms the other strategies, regardless of the COVID-19 scenario, in terms of total direct deaths and the number of surgeries performed. However, this does come at the cost of 50% more critical care rejections. In terms of aggregate hospital performance, a reactive cancellation strategy prioritising COVID-19 is no longer favourable if more than 7.3% of elective surgeries can be considered life-saving. Additionally, the model demonstrates the impact of timely hospital preparation and staff availability, on the ability to treat patients during a pandemic. The model can aid hospitals worldwide during pandemics and disasters, to evaluate their resource allocation strategies and identify the effect of redefining the prioritisation of patients.

More than bin packing: Dynamic resource allocation strategies in cloud data centers

2015 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 83-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Wolke ◽  
Boldbaatar Tsend-Ayush ◽  
Carl Pfeiffer ◽  
Martin Bichler
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Data Centers ◽  
Bin Packing ◽  
Dynamic Resource Allocation ◽  
Cloud Data ◽  
Cloud Data Centers ◽  
Dynamic Resource ◽  
Allocation Strategies

The scaling of growth, reproduction and defense in colonies of Amazonian Termites

Sociobiology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Pedro A. C. L. Pequeno ◽  
Elizabeth Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Life History Evolution ◽  
Resource Limitation ◽  
Colony Growth ◽  
Common Species ◽  
Defense Strategies ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Caste Ratio ◽  
Allocation Strategies

Phenotypes can evolve through life-history tradeoffs. Termites have been the first eusocial insects on Earth, prompting life history evolution at the colony level. Despite this, termite life-history allocation strategies are poorly known. Here, we addressed this issue using novel data on three common species from the diverse, yet understudied Amazonian termite fauna: Neocapritermes braziliensis, Labiotermes labralis and Anoplotermes banksi. Using Oster and Wilson’s optimal caste ratio theory and Higashi et al.’s termite caste allocation theory as frameworks, we assessed how termite colonies should invest in growth (immatures), reproduction (alates) and defense (soldiers) as they accumulate workers. We also examined whether soldier loss in soil-feeding Apicotermitinae (A. banksi) may have affected allocation strategies. We found that: (1) the scaling of immature number was isometric in the three species, contrary to the leveling off expected under resource limitation; (2) colonies of all sizes were equally likely to produce any number of alates, rather than having a size threshold for reproduction; (3) the scaling of soldier number was unrelated to alate production, but varied from isometry in N. braziliensis to negative allometry in L. labralis despite their similar defense strategies; (4) A. banksi had more immatures per worker and a higher maximum alate number per worker than the other species, suggesting that soldier loss may have allowed higher relative investment in colony growth and, possibly, reproduction. Termites can provide novel insights into life-history allocation strategies and their relation to social evolution, and should be better incorporated into sociobiological theory.

scholarly journals Dynamic Programming for Resource Allocation in Multi-Allelic Trait Introgression

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Han ◽  
John N. Cameron ◽  
Lizhi Wang ◽  
Hieu Pham ◽  
William D. Beavis
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Allocation Procedure ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Probability Of Success ◽  
Markov Decision ◽  
Dynamic Resource ◽  
The Right ◽  
Allocation Strategies ◽  
Trait Introgression

Trait introgression is a complex process that plant breeders use to introduce desirable alleles from one variety or species to another. Two of the major types of decisions that must be made during this sophisticated and uncertain workflow are: parental selection and resource allocation. We formulated the trait introgression problem as an engineering process and proposed a Markov Decision Processes (MDP) model to optimize the resource allocation procedure. The efficiency of the MDP model was compared with static resource allocation strategies and their trade-offs among budget, deadline, and probability of success are demonstrated. Simulation results suggest that dynamic resource allocation strategies from the MDP model significantly improve the efficiency of the trait introgression by allocating the right amount of resources according to the genetic outcome of previous generations.

scholarly journals A Survey and Comparative Study of Hard and Soft Real-Time Dynamic Resource Allocation Strategies for Multi-/Many-Core Systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Kumar Singh ◽  
Piotr Dziurzanski ◽  
Hashan Roshantha Mendis ◽  
Leandro Soares Indrusiak
Keyword(s):  
Resource Allocation ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Dynamic Resource Allocation ◽  
Time Dynamic ◽  
Dynamic Resource ◽  
Many Core ◽  
Allocation Strategies
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