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Many animals devote substantial time, energy and resources to assessing nonmating social partners. However, relatively little is known about how individual characteristics influence the process and outcome of social partner choice. Social partner choice is an important aspect of Polistes fuscatus wasp lives, as nest-founding queens form and dissolve many short-term social relationships before settling down in stable cooperative groups. Here, we asked how personality and body size influence social partner assessment, the specific partners chosen, behaviour within social groups and group offspring production. We evaluated social and nonsocial personality traits (exploration, affiliation, aggression, investigation) and body mass in 75 individually marked queens, then released them in a large naturalistic enclosure where we recorded social partner assessment, nest founding behaviour and behaviour on nests. At the end of the season, we collected nests as a measure of group reproductive output. Exploratory personality had a stronger effect on social behaviour than other personality measures. More exploratory wasps sampled more social partners, joined nests later and spent fewer days as members of stable nests. Less exploratory wasps were more likely to become dominant on nests and were more aggressive after partnerships were established. Larger wasps sampled more potential nest sites, suggesting that sampling induces energetic costs that larger individuals are better able to bear. Among dominant and solitary-nesting wasps, more affiliative wasps built larger nests and more aggressive wasps built smaller nests. We did not find that wasps selected partners based on any measured trait. Overall, our work demonstrates that personality traits play an important role in how social partners are assessed, how social groups are formed, behaviour within established social groups and the success of social groups. Our study also suggests that personality mediates a trade-off between time spent sampling partners and social bond stability. • We evaluated effects of personality and body size on social partner choice in wasps. • More exploratory wasps sampled more social partners and joined nests later. • They spent fewer days in stable groups and were less likely to be dominant on nests. • Body size and social personality had little effect on partner assessment. • Personality may mediate a social assessment–stable social bond trade-off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social organization is characterized by its stability. Researchers consistently observe distinct social relationships (e.g. mated pairs, friendships and rivalries) and higher-order social network structures (e.g. subgroups, transitivity and dominance hierarchies) across time and space. Nevertheless, group change is also ubiquitous, and the social composition of groups fluctuates over time and across generations. Despite this, little is known about the processes underlying the stability of social organization, especially across generations. This paper proposes that understanding the development of social relationships, or socialization, provides key insights into the stability and flexibility of group social organization. I propose that stable patterns of social organization can be conceptualized as a feedback system, where the social organization of groups renews itself by guiding the socialization of resilient species-normative relationships in juveniles. I outline a general framework of socialization that includes exploring, pruning and consolidating early social connections to form stable relationships. During this socialization process, outside influences from the group guide how juveniles explore their social environment, which social connections are reinforced and which behavioural skills are used to consolidate connections. When the social relationships that define the group's organization directly or indirectly guide the socialization of juveniles to recreate those relationships, the result is stable patterns of social organization. This developmental perspective provides mechanistic insights into how social organization persists in an uncertain world and highlights how developmental processes may be a crucial, and overlooked, factor in shaping the stability and flexibility of social organization. • Social organization is characterized by its stability. • I propose that socialization is a key process of group stability/flexibility. • Socialization includes exploring, pruning and consolidating early social connections. • Social organization and socialization can be conceptualized as a feedback system. • This feedback system renews resilient species-typical relationships over generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest in better understanding the characteristics and drivers of food consumption by individuals and social groups has grown in recent years, because of various social, environmental, health and economic issues. Most analyses have focused either on the macro or national scale, using food balance/disappearance data, or on the micro scale, focusing on nutrition analysis in limited groups of individual consumers. While various household characteristics are expected to influence food-purchasing habits, the scope and methodology of most previous studies limited their ability to relate to multiple factors, and integrate all into specific consumption patterns. A third, mezzo approach focuses on analyzing household food purchasing, mostly using expenditure surveys. However, focusing on the value spent may result in different quantities of food purchased. This paper aims capturing the amount of food purchased by Israeli households and to analyze the socio-economic factors shaping that consumption. It joins limited number of studies worldwide that focused on the quantity purchased, and the first such analysis of household food purchasing in the State of Israel. It quantified food purchased by more than 30,000 households, and analyzed key shaping factors e.g., income, household size and age. It first, established the need for quantity based analysis. Then, an extensive breakdown of consumed food is presented and the unique diets of different parts of the society were identified. Finally, it examined the consumption of different lifestyles to find that couples lifestyles tend to consume more per capita, and that income has a crucial role in determining the rate of consumption both in terms of quantity and variety purchased. However it highlights that other variables should also be examined in order to assess properly why households consume the way they do. Nevertheless, the findings of this research can be used as the basis for examining the health, social, or environmental implications of the different identified food consumption habits, support long-term research that examines changes over time, and may be the basis for examining the potential benefits of implementing specific policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the question of the conditions for persistence of technological boundaries. We use field studies to test the predictions generated by a theoretical model in analytical sociology and examine the micro-processes at stake in the non-diffusion of techniques: to which extent techniques contributes to a sharp disagreement between groups and promote polarization? The ultimate goal is to provide archaeologists with an empirically tested model to explain spatial distribution of technological clusters and maintenance of technological boundaries. Field studies examine ethnographic situations in four countries where social groups using different ceramic techniques for making utilitarian vessels live in close geographical proximity. Two situations enable us to examine the conditions under which technological boundaries persist, while two others enable us to analyze, through a boundary-making perspective, how differences in craft techniques contribute to polarization. Our data suggest that in a context where different techniques are used for different types of object there is a cognitive bias which fosters technological polarization. This cognitive bias develops in the course of interactions between actors living in close geographical proximity. Polarization increases when technological standards are used by different social groups, thereby favoring negative influence and persistent technological boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of social networks have often taken the existence of a social tie as a proxy for the transmission of information. However, other studies of social networks in the labor market propose that the likelihood of information transmission might depend on strength of the tie; and that tie strength is a potentially important source of the tie's value. After all, even if job seekers have social ties to those who have valuable job information, the seekers will gain little information benefit when the ties do not actually transmit the information. This paper clarifies the conditions under which social ties might provide information benefits. We use a survey vignette experiment and ask MBA students about their likelihood of relaying job information via strong ties (to friends) or weak ties (to acquaintances), holding constant the structural locations spanned by the tie and job seekers' fit with the job. The results support the claim that strength of tie has a causal effect on the chances of information transmission: potential referrers are more likely to relay job information to their friends than to acquaintances. The larger implication of these findings is that whatever benefits there might be to using weak ties to reach distant non-redundant information during job search, these benefits need to be considered against the likely fact that people connected via weak ties are less likely to actually share information about job opportunities than are people to whom the job seeker is strongly tied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Three early Medieval (12th c. AD) house deposits are examined from Croatia. • Explores how identity may manifest itself through individual/collective practice. • The results suggest shared 'folk' beliefs had a valued place in Dalmatian society. • The objects go beyond symbols of apotropaic magic but served multiple purposes. This paper examines three early medieval ritual house deposits from Bribirska glavica, Dalmatia, Croatia. Discovered over the last century these items bring to the fore questions regarding the relationship between state and secular religion in a region that experienced numerous encounters and confrontations within and between different social groups. This paper explores these complexities using the term 'religious imaginaries' to describe how a sense of collective identity may manifest itself through individual and collective practice, focusing on the value of the discovered objects (chickens, eggs, whetstones and plant remains) and their ritual framings. In particular, the recovery of archaeobotanical remains highlights the importance of examining plant use in ritual deposits. Overall, despite some variation in the interpretations of the practice of 'special' offerings, the majority of studies draw the conclusion that items hidden in this manner provide a broadly protective or apotropaic function. Thus, these finds provide important insights into the development of religious and ritual beliefs in early medieval Dalmatia, suggesting that the community's religious imaginary comprised a set of values and symbols that hybridised the Christian faith with elements of 'folk magic' to re-inforce the apotropaic power of their ritual acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of a Special Issue “Chemosignals and Reproduction” Across phyla, chemosensory communication is crucial for mediating a variety of social behaviors, which form the basis for ontogenetic and phylogenetic survival. In the present paper, evidence on chemosensory communication in humans, with special reference to reproduction and survival, will be presented. First, the impact of chemosignals on human reproduction will be reviewed. Work will be presented, showing how chemosensory signals are involved in mate choice and partnership formation by communicating attractiveness and facilitating a partner selection, which is of evolutionary advantage, and furthermore providing information about the level of sexual hormones. In addition to direct effects on phylogenetic survival, chemosignals indirectly aid reproductive success by fostering harm protection. Results will be presented, showing that chemosensory communication aids the emotional bond between mother and child, which in turn motivates parental caretaking and protection, leading to infant survival. Moreover, the likelihood of group survival can be increased through the use of stress-related chemosignals. Stress-related chemosignals induce a stress-related physiology in the perceiver, thereby priming a fight–flight-response, which is necessary for an optimum adaption to environmental harm. Finally, effects of sexual orientation on chemosensory communication will be discussed in terms of their putative role in stabilizing social groups, which might indirectly provide harm protection and foster survival. An integrative model of the presented data will be introduced. In conclusion, an outlook, focusing on the involvement of chemosensory communication in human social behavior and illustrating a novel approach to the significance of chemosensory signals in human survival, will be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflict between children's activities has been recognized as one of the main barriers to school recess play; however, the role of school design in shaping the conflict is not sufficiently known, particularly from children's perspectives. This study's primary objective is to investigate the topic in the context of primary school grounds with 8–10 year-old children to understand the nature of play activities that are not compatible and the role of school layout in shaping the conflict between them. By using behavior mapping, walking tours and focus groups in three Australian primary school playgrounds, this paper showed that to avoid conflict, children preferred play settings organized around distinct zones. Children identified the character of each zone by the affordances it contained, the governing school rules, and the activities it supported. They asked for multiple separate zones for gross motor activities, and for each social group to play with their own year and gender. They also required physical barriers and sufficient buffer space around play settings to prevent disruption. The discussion suggests interventions in school layouts that help avoid conflict between children's activities and ultimately enhance their engagement in self-directed play. • Grassed areas support multiple activity types that usually come into conflict. • Providing multiple separate zones for gross motor activities can avoid conflict. • Unavailability of multiple zones can lead to informal use of school playgrounds. • Children choose to move along the paths that hug the edges of play settings. • Incompatible play activities need appropriate boundaries if located adjacently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ancient Egypt provides insights on local responses to political and social changes. • Changes were not all gradual and were part of interacting, dynamic, multiscalar adaptive cycles. • Inhabitants at Tell el-Dabˁa reacted and (re-)adapted via short- and long-term strategies. • Strategies include fostering community, negotiating cultural elements, and developing networks. Ancient Egypt is considered as one of the world's longest enduring civilisations, yet few studies have explored its history for insights on community resilience in response to institutional and social change. Instead of focussing on the collapse of the central Egyptian administration, this paper centres its analysis on a 'community' in the northeast of Egypt at ancient Avaris, modern Tell el-Dabˁa. Using resilience theory as metaphor, it provides an overview of developments at the site, observing periods of relative stability punctuated by those of accelerated change. It addresses how different social groups transformed in light of social and political developments by (re-)negotiating cultural elements as well as their local, regional, and supra-regional ties, and whether and how these may be interpreted as short- and long-term strategies of 'survival'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies an innovative approach to monitoring social effects occurring before and during construction of two hydroelectric dams in Canada. The two studied dams, Site C and Keeyask, are under construction in Canada and underwent community-based impact assessment (CBIA). News coverage and the CBIA documents were analyzed to understand and compare how those two groups perceive social effects induced by the two projects. CBIAs contain concerns expressed by affected people, whereas news coverage can include quotes from both affected people and decisionmakers involved in the assessment process. By contrasting these datasets, we found that the documents are complementary: while CBIAs are comprehensive in assessing community concerns, news outlets can reveal how those concerns evolved throughout different phases of the projects' implementation. This approach fills a gap in SIA around monitoring of key social effects around local conflicts and disputes, psychosocial effects, socioeconomic effects, and cumulative effects on a daily life. Furthermore, by contrasting the views identified within the impact assessments and the media, the study demonstrates how specific concerns diverged: affected people focus on local social effects while decisionmakers' interests lie in a broader political perspective grounded in local sacrifices 'for the good of the whole province'. Our analysis emphasizes the role of political power over decision making that can inhibit CBIA and social impact assessment practice from contributing to socially sustainable projects. • News outlets can be used to monitor social effects from infrastructure projects. • Community assessments tend to address more chronic effects while news media coverage focuses on episodes of conflicts. • Pollical power over decision-making might inhibit more sustainable projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While inequality between individuals is known to be an important determinant of redistributive preferences, research on inequality between groups has increased only recently. This paper argues that individuals infer income expectations from the economic standing of their social group, in particular groups based on characteristics determined at birth, such as sex, race, or parents class. High group incomes can lead individuals to oppose redistribution, even if they are currently poor. Analyses of US survey data from 1978 to 2014 support this argument. The uncovered effects on preferences exceed those of individual income by more than three times in magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animated GIF has become a key communication tool in contemporary social platforms thanks to highly compatible with affective performance, and it is gradually adopted in commercial applications. Therefore, the copyright protection of the animated GIF requires more attention. Digital watermarking is an effective method to embed invisible data into a digital medium that can identify the creator or authorized users. However, few works have been devoted to robust watermarking for the animated GIF. One of the main challenges is that the animated image also contains time frame dimension information compare with still images. This paper proposes a robust blind watermarking framework based 3D convolutional neural networks for the animated GIF image, which achieves watermark image embedding and extraction for the animated GIF. Also, noise simulation is developed in frame-level to ensure robustness for the attack of the temporal dimension in this framework. Furthermore, the invisibility of the watermarked animated image is optimized by adversarial learning. Experimental results provide the effectiveness of the proposed framework and show advantages over existing works. • A novel robust watermarking method for the animated GIF image is proposed. • Employ 3D convolutional neural networks to learn the feature of the animated GIF image at the frame-level. • Design various noise attacks to gain robustness of the animated GIF image watermarking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP) is a major methodological problem that might affect the accuracy of assessments of individual exposure to mobility-dependent environmental factors (e.g., air/noise pollution, green/blue spaces, or healthy food environments). Focusing on outdoor ground-level ozone as a major air pollutant, this paper examines the NEAP in the evaluation of sociodemographic disparities in people's air pollution exposures in Los Angeles using one-day activity-travel diary data of 3790 individuals. It addresses two questions: (1) How does the NEAP affect the evaluation of sociodemographic disparities in people's air pollution exposures? (2) Which social groups with high residence-based exposures do not experience neighborhood effect averaging? The results of our spatial regression models indicate that assessments of sociodemographic disparities in people's outdoor ground-level ozone exposures might be erroneous when people's daily mobility is ignored because of the different manifestations of neighborhood effect averaging for different social/racial groups. The results of our spatial autologistic regression model reveal that non-workers (e.g., the unemployed, homemakers, the retired, and students) do not experience downward averaging : they have significantly lower odds of experiencing downward averaging that could have attenuated their high exposures experienced in their residential neighborhoods while traveling to other neighborhoods (thus, being doubly disadvantaged). Therefore, to avoid erroneous conclusions in environmental inequality research and ineffective public policies, it would be critical to take the NEAP into account in future studies of sociodemographic disparities related to mobility-dependent environmental factors. • Ignoring human mobility may lead to the neighborhood effect averaging problem (NEAP). • This study examined how the NEAP affects assessments of sociodemographic disparities in people's ozone exposures. • We found that these assessments might be erroneous when people's daily mobility is ignored. • Non-workers constitute the doubly disadvantaged groups that do not experience downward averaging. • Studies on exposures to mobility-dependent environmental factors should consider the NEAP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a mathematical model of the distribution over time of talking in discussion groups. Researchers of small group processes and social inequality have long recognized that interaction in small discussion groups is usually not equally distributed and that being a person who talks more than others is associated with having higher status outside the group and greater prestige and influence within the group. There is also a history of mathematical approaches to describing this phenomenon. As an addition to this literature, here a nonlinear dynamical system model is presented and used to develop computer simulations that are compared with data from a laboratory study of real four-person discussion groups. The model is based on theoretical assumptions about group processes including individual differences in volubility, status generalization, deference hierarchies and norms of taking turns and of fairness. While none of these alone make predictions that match the data, when they are all combined simulations are produced that closely match the data in both changes over time and differentiation among members. The dynamical system using the parameters as estimated for these data reaches a fixed point, which may help understand how groups structures become stable under some conditions but not others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Technological and behavioural developments in Europe at 400,000 years ago. • Model of landscape and resources shaping development of localised material culture. • Model of population movement triggered by shifts in climate or environment. • Estimates of social group and territory size for Middle Pleistocene Europe. Identification of cultural groups is rare in the early Palaeolithic due to site formation processes including taphonomy and the effect of raw material and site function. This paper reviews a critical period in Europe at about 400 ka (MIS 11) when we may be able to identify such groups. This period, sees more sustained occupation and evidence of new technologies, including bone and wooden tools, hunting and fire-use. Importantly, brain size had begun to approach modern capacity. The fine-tuned record from Britain enables correlation of sites and new models of human behaviour to be developed. Millennial-scale changes in material culture can now be recognised, which can be interpreted as brief incursions by different cultural groups into Britain from mainland Europe. We suggest that population movement was primarily driven by changes in climate and environment. We further propose that variation in material culture is a reflection of local resources and landscape and that during stable environment localised expressions of culture emerge. This can be applied to Europe, where it is suggested that a complex mosaic of small-scale cultural groupings can be identified, some with and some without handaxes, but underpinned by a common set of technologies and behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Settlement data used to examine the political strategies of different social groups within political hierarchies. • Focus on intermediate elites below apical rulers and above low-status commoners. • Intermediate elite strategies in Classic Maya political dynamics. • Multi-variate statistical analysis of settlement pattern data from Belize River Valley as a case study. • Belize River Valley settlement hierarchy separates into 5 tiers above commoners. Intermediate elites played pivotal roles in the political dynamics of ancient complex societies across the world. In the Classic period (CE 250–900/1000) Maya lowlands, intermediate elites acted as mediators between apical rulers and lower status commoners. These individuals and the political strategies they employed, however, have rarely taken center stage in reconstructions of Classic Maya politics. In this paper, we evaluate the role of intermediate elites who occupied the middle level of the settlement hierarchy of the Belize River Valley of west-central Belize. Multivariate statistical analyses of architectural variables (n = 24) across 35 sites identified five hierarchically arranged groups of settlement types. Groups 2 and 3 are associated with intermediate elites, with Group 2 being large specialized centers with ballcourts, causeways, terminus groups and multiple plazas. In contrast, Group 3 were smaller residential and ceremonial centers focused around a single plaza. Investigation of patterned variability in the middle tier of the settlement hierarchy provides evidence for five political strategies which intermediate elites used to gain and maintain power and authority: (1) ancestor veneration, (2) ceremonial integration of commoners, (3) acting as neighborhood heads, (4) apical elite emulation, and (5) pursuing a 'frontier' role. Elucidating the variability in intermediate elite decision-making provides a new avenue for understanding the dynamics of integration and autonomy across the Classic Maya political landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]