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Impact of artificial light at night on the foraging behaviour of the European Hamster: consequences for the introduction of this species in suburban areas
Sophie M. Dupont‡, Lauréline Guinnefollau§, Christiane Weber|, Odile Petit¶
‡ Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers en Bois, France
§ Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
¶ Université de Tours, Nouzilly, France
Corresponding author: Sophie M. Dupont ( sophie.dupont93@gmail.com )
Academic editor: Natasha Shelby
© 2019 Sophie M. Dupont, Lauréline Guinnefollau, Christiane Weber, Odile Petit.
Citation: Dupont SM, Guinnefollau L, Weber C, Petit O (2019) Impact of artificial light at night on the foraging behaviour of the European Hamster: consequences for the introduction of this species in suburban areas. Rethinking Ecology 4: 133-148. https://doi.org/10.3897/rethinkingecology.4.36467
Among the pressures introduced by urbanization, artificial light at night (ALAN) can be problematic, particularly for nocturnal species. Populations of European hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) have dramatically decreased in France since 1972 because of habitat loss due to urbanisation and changes in agricultural methods. The conservation project Life Alister aims to increase the abundance of this species in suburban areas via hamster release. However, the success of this population-restoration project may be compromised due to the possible effects of ALAN on the daily and seasonal cycles and behaviour of this nocturnal species. To understand how hamsters may respond to relocation, we experimentally studied the impact of ALAN on hamster foraging, a decisive behaviour for survival in natural habitats. This study assessed the behavioural responses of 18 animals when choosing between two food sources of different palatability in two different lighting conditions: artificial light (4 or 40 lux) or darkness. Our results show that hamsters avoided lighting that mimics suburban streetlights, particularly when grooming. Moreover, this study reveals that hamsters do not avoid street-lit areas when highly palatable food is present, suggesting they would be more susceptible to predation under these circumstances. Our results suggest that the adverse effects of ALAN on the behaviour of hamsters released on the outskirts of developed suburban areas could be limited by restricting the number of street lights, moderating the intensity of street lighting, or switching lights off during the hours hamsters are most active. We further recommend that wildlife managers avoid planting plants that are highly palatable to hamsters close to lighting in suburban areas to limit the risk of predation for this species.
Conservation, Cricetus cricetus, Anthropization, street light
Given the increase of the human population living in urban areas (Seto et al. 2010) that has been observed in the last 50 years, urbanisation has dramatically expanded, invading rural areas and exposing wildlife to new environmental pressures. The decrease observed in the Alsatian population of European hamsters (Cricetus cricetus) since 1972 is reported to be caused by habitat loss resulting from urbanisation and changes in agricultural practices, notably intensive cereal monoculture (O'Brien 2015; Tissier et al. 2016a and 2017). This species is listed on the 4th annex of the European Union Directive for habitat conservation as a highly threatened mammal species and the steady decline of the population in France has alerted authorities of the importance of protecting the almost extinct population, which is located in the Alsace region (Villemey et al. 2013). In addition to national conservation programs, the Life Alister project aims to develop the presence of this species in suburban areas (LIFE Biodiversity ALISTER (LIFE12 BIO/FR/000979)). Indeed, populations of hamsters have successfully habituated to anthropization in other regions of Europe, such as Austria (Franceschini and Millesi 2003), Russia and Ukraine (Feoktistova et al. 2013) and Slovakia (Čanády 2013) where cities have expanded into hamster habitats, a process called synurbanisation (Surov et al. 2016). However, artificial light at night (ALAN), inherent to urban areas, can be problematic for hamster survival after release. While ensuring the comfort and safety of humans through the night in urban areas, ALAN has negative effects on some organisms living in anthropic environments (Gaston et al. 2014, 2015a, 2015b; Navara and Nelson 2007). For instance, ALAN disrupts circannual cycles, such as reproduction seasonality (Goldman 2001; Dominoni et al. 2013; Robert et al. 2015; Le Tallec et al. 2016; Gaston et al. 2017), which can lead to decreased reproductive success (Ikeno et al. 2014; Cissé et al. 2017 but see Stracey et al. 2014 for increased reproductive success of birds). ALAN can also generate the appearance of a "night light niche" (Garber 1978; Russ et al. 2015; Silva et al. 2017), corresponding to the colonisation of the nocturnal niche by diurnal species and thus increasing interspecies competition and predation. Animals can also modify their foraging patterns in response to increased nocturnal visibility to reduce their risk of predation (reported in fishes: Clark and Levy 1988; Becker et al. 2013, and in rodents: Clarke 1983; Kotler et al. 1991; Bird et al. 2004; Farnworth et al. 2016). More precisely, in rodents, Farnworth et al. (2016) demonstrated an association between illuminated areas and predation risk in both captive and wild mice. In addition, Bowers (1988) reported that desert rodents show significantly more avoidance behaviour when an area of their habitat is illuminated during the full moon than during the new moon. As the successful hunting of prey appears to be facilitated by nocturnal illumination (Kaufman and Kaufman 1982; Lockard and Owings 1974; Price et al. 1984; Rosenzweig 1974, Miller et al. 2017), prey species have had to adapt their behaviour to avoid illuminated areas of their environment (Clarke 1983; Wolfe and Summerlin 1989; Lima 1998; Jacob et al. 2017; Beier 2006), which they associate with a higher predation risk (Orrock et al. 2004; Navarro-Castilla et al. 2018; Lima and Dill 1990). Moreover, the avoidance of illuminated zones by rodents tends to reduce their foraging area and thus probably limits their available food resources (Bowers 1988; Kotler 1984a, 1984b; Price et al. 1984, Vijayan et al. 2018). Indeed, O'Dowd and Hay (1980) indicated that diversity in the diet composition of rodents seems to be negatively correlated with predation risk.
In this study, we aim to evaluate the possible use of suburban areas as relocation habitats for the protection of European hamsters in France. We focused on areas bordering developed zones (i.e. suburban areas), as these areas have lower levels of perturbation by humans and may thus provide favourable conditions for hamster conservation. However, anthropic disturbance may impact the introduction of hamsters in suburban areas, in particular due to the effects of ALAN. European hamsters are nocturnal and territorial, so ALAN could modify their daily and seasonal cycles and change their behaviour, ultimately impacting individual fitness. For these reasons, we question whether the release of hamsters in suburban areas will actually facilitate restoration of this threatened population. In this paper, to understand how hamsters may respond to relocation, we experimentally studied the impact of artificial lighting on the foraging behaviour of the hamster. With this experiment, we aimed to determine how hamsters bred in captive conditions react when faced with two sources of food (of high or low palatability) under different light intensities typically found in Alsatian cities (in terms of wavelength and light intensities). We hypothesised that the foraging pattern of hamsters will be modified when individuals are confronted with light in the environment and that hamsters will generally show an aversive response to ALAN.
The experimental protocols followed EU Directive 2010/63/EU guidelines for animal experiments and the care and use of laboratory animals, and were approved by the Ethical Committee (CREMEAS) under agreement number APAFIS#3809-2016012713151858.
The 18 hamsters tested in this experiment were adults (2-year old) born and bred in the laboratory breeding centre of the Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien in Strasbourg, France. A balanced sex ratio of nine males and nine females was studied. To align with the solitary behaviour of this species, all individuals were housed individually in cages (dimensions 38.5 × 121.5 × 18 cm), which were enriched with nesting materials (cellulose and hay). Animals were maintained at a constant ambient temperature of 18 °C and a relative humidity of 55%. Animals of this centre are bred to be released in the wild for repopulation purposes and are reared under normal photoperiod conditions. Therefore, during the daytime photoperiod, fluorescent lamps emitting 944 lux at mid-height, were synchronised with the sunrise and sunset and with the natural progressive light intensities at this latitude. Kibbles (pellets 105; Safe, Augy, France, composed of 19.3% protein, 54.9% carbohydrates, 5.1% lipids, 4.2% cellulose, 5.0% minerals and 11.5% water) and water were available ad libitum. Hamsters were studied for 8 weeks after emerging from hibernation at the beginning of April 2016. Animals were manipulated using a box to move them from their cages to the experimental test arena in order to reduce stress and limit their contact with humans.
Foraging experiments
This experiment investigated whether ALAN modifies the foraging patterns of hamsters. To ensure that analogous suburban lighting conditions were successfully reproduced, a lux meter was used prior to testing to measure the light intensity a hamster would experience if 1) directly below the streetlight and 2) in the peripheral zone (at a distance of 15 m) of a streetlight in a suburban area. The distance between two street lamps in a Strasbourg periphery is an average of 35 m. The resulting intensities of 40 lux and 4 lux, respectively, were then reproduced in experimental conditions using light bulbs (Luxeon, type Rebel PC Amber-LXM2-PL010000, dominant wavelength 591.0 nm) that imitate the high-pressure sodium bulbs used in the current lighting system of Strasbourg, Alsace, France.
We built a test arena (dimensions 150 × 80 × 50 cm) composed of two compartments connected via a 10 cm x 10 cm opening, and placed it in a dark room (Figure 1A). An identical source of artificial light (an amber LED emitting at 0, 4 or 40 lux) was placed 80 cm above the floor of each compartment. One of the compartments was randomly chosen as the ALAN environment, or "illuminated compartment" (IC). The other compartment, the "dark compartment" (DC), remained unlit (i.e. 0 lux). At the opening between the compartments, on a perimeter of 5 cm², we measured 0.2 lux; this region was considered a "secure" area of the arena (Wolfe and Summerlin 1989, Kotler et al. 1991, Clarke 1983) because in the dark, hamsters are less visible to predators. At the beginning of each trial, the animal was removed from its cage and placed in the arena's entrance opening located midway between the LEDs (i.e. between the two compartments).
A Schematic representation of the test arena used for this experiment. Here, the left compartment is the Illuminated Compartment (IC). The source of light emitted was 4 or 40 lux. The right compartment is the Dark Compartment (DC) and contained an unlit amber LED. The two compartments are connected by an opening in the wall. Hamsters entered the arena through an opening (manually handled) located midway between the compartments. B Schematic representation of our experimental design. We performed 16 trials per individual hamster in a full-factorial design that included laterality (illuminated compartment on Left or Right of the test arena), time of the day (Morning or Afternoon), light intensity (4 lux or 40 lux) and food quality condition (HQF or LQF). We considered only the first trial for each light intensity and for each food quality condition. The four tests we are mentioning at the end of the paragraph were the ones used for the analysis, the others being conducted for checking the potential laterality and time of the day biases (but these trials were not used in the subsequent analyses).
The hamsters were tested in two different conditions (Figure 1B). A light intensity of 4 or 40 lux was applied in the IC in both conditions, but the food source differed. In the high-quality food (HQF) condition, two live mealworms (1.2 cm, Truffaut) were placed below the functioning LED in the IC. This food is considered to be highly palatable for this species (Yves Handrich, personal communication). A low palatability food (two kibbles that they were accustomed to consume) was placed in the DC. In the low-quality food (LQF) condition, two kibbles were placed in each of the compartments. Eight trials of 15 min each at 4 or 40 lux (Figure 1B) were conducted for each individual in HQF and LQF conditions in randomly assigned order to limit any experimental design bias related to the location of the illuminated compartment (left or right) and trial schedule (morning or afternoon). This trial duration was chosen to let individuals exploring all the arena and eating food without possibility of habituation. In addition, because we aimed to study the natural behaviour of hamsters encountering light in their environment, no acclimation period was considered.
Each 15-min trial was filmed using an infrared camera placed above the arena. Data were recorded by video monitoring. During the viewing, observers were blinded to the light intensity applied but not to the food quality condition because mealworms and kibbles are easy to distinguish. The time spent by individuals in IC and DC was calculated for each test. The proportion of time of foraging and grooming behaviour was recorded as well as the compartment in which the behaviour was performed was recorded. "Foraging" refers to any behaviour related to the active seeking or manipulation of food. Both mealworms and kibbles require several bites by hamsters in order to be entirely consumed. The term "grooming" refers to cleaning or scratching. Grooming behaviours were recorded because they could reflect individual stress level (Smolinsky et al. 2009). At the beginning of the testing period, none of the hamsters had previous experience of our experimental procedure.
Experiments were conducted between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. For safety reasons, no testing was permitted by our administration during nights at the lab, so tests were conducted during the day. As this corresponds to the period when the hamsters would usually be asleep, we first ensured that individuals were sufficiently active. For 4 weeks, we filmed hamsters of a breeding room during the whole day and recorded their frequency of activities: mean hourly frequency of exploration was 2.45 ± 0.275; mean hourly frequency of foraging was 1.18 ± 0.202; mean hourly frequency of maintenance was 0.65 ± 0.085; with some individuals being quite active with 15 occurrences of exploration per hour, 12 occurrences of foraging per hour. Moreover, their frenzy observed in the presence of mealworms indicated they were sufficiently active during our trials. In addition, wild hamsters have been reported to display surface activity during the day in urban environments despite that they are nocturnal animals (Schmelzer and Millesi 2008).
All statistical analyses were performed using R.3.1.2 (R core Team 2015). To analyse the behavioural responses of hamsters exposed to ALAN, we ran generalised linear mixed-effect models (GLMM) using the R package 'lme4'. Individual identity was included as a random effect to consider pseudo-replication (i.e., the same hamster was used in 4 trials : 2 in the HQF (1 per light intensity - 4 lux and 40 lux) and 2 in the LQF condition (1 per light intensity - 4 lux and 40 lux), Hurlbert 1984) in each model. Best-fitting models were selected via an information-theoretic approach using the R package 'multcomp' and its 'dredge' function. This package uses the corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc), the delta AIC (ΔAIC) and the Akaike weight (Burnham and Anderson 2002). When ΔAIC > 2, the decision-making rule applied was to select the model with the lowest AIC value. When ΔAIC < 2, we chose the model with the lowest number of parameters by applying the principle of parsimony (Suppl. material 1: Tables S1, S2).
The first analysis concerned the time spent in each light condition. We ran two sets of models to explain our variable of interest by separating the two light intensity conditions (4 or 40 lux) in either HQF or LQF conditions. The response variable was expressed as the time spent by individuals in each compartment of the arena divided by the total proportion of time of a trial. We investigated the ability of hamsters to discriminate between our two compartments according to the light intensity thanks to paired Student's t-tests. We compared the time spent by each individual to chance level (50%: 450 out of 900 recorded seconds) using a binomial test.
The second analysis was the proportion of time spent engaged in behaviours (grooming or foraging). We ran two sets of models to explain our variables of interest in HQF and LQF conditions. The response variables were expressed as: (1) the time spent grooming in the illuminated compartment divided by the total time spent grooming, (2) the time spent foraging in the illuminated compartment of the arena divided by the total time spent foraging. The resulting proportions were considered a binomial distribution. 'Light intensity' (4 vs 40 lux) and 'sex' (male vs female) were fixed factors. Wald tests were performed to evaluate the effect of each fixed factor on these response variables.
The final analysis sought to determine the effect of food palatability on the time spent foraging in the illuminated compartment of the arena. We again considered the time spent foraging in the illuminated compartment divided by the total time spent foraging. The resulting proportion was considered a binomial distribution. 'Light intensity' (4 vs 40 lux), 'food quality' (HQF vs LQF) and 'sex' (male vs female) were fixed factors. Wald tests were again performed to compare the proportion of time of foraging in each condition and the effect of the light intensity on this variable.
To exclude a possible learning effect, only the first trial of each light intensity per food-quality condition for each hamster was considered in the analysis (N = 18 hamsters for each experimental condition). Analyses thus used data from four trials (LQF and HQF at 4 lux; LQF and HQF at 40 lux). We used Student's t-test to ensure that the time of day (morning or afternoon) and laterality (illuminated compartment on the left or the right of the arena) had no effect on the proportion of time of foraging and grooming and excluded these variables from our analysis (grooming proportion of time: Student's t-Test, PTime of day = 0.765; PLaterality = 0.158; Foraging proportion of time: Student's t-test, PTime of day = 0.114; PLaterality = 0.275). We did not observe an effect of the 'trial order', considered as a fixed variable, in any model, so we decided to exclude this variable from our analyses.
Time spent in each light condition
In both HQF and LQF conditions, we found that individuals spent significantly more time in the DC than the IC when the IC was illuminated at 40 lux (Table 1). More precisely, we highlighted that individuals spent significantly less time in the IC compared to the chance level (Student's t-test, t = -2.62, P-value = 0.018; t = -2.14, P-value = 0.044 respectively for HQF and LQF). We found no significant difference in the proportion of time spent in the DC and the IC when the IC was illuminated at 4 lux (Table 1). More precisely, we observed that individuals spent equal time in the IC compared to 50% (Student's t-test, t = -0.350, P-value = 0.731; t = -1.50, P-value = 0.149 respectively for HQF and LQF).
Table 1.Download as CSV
Mean proportion (%, ± S.D.) of time spent in each compartment (Dark Compartment (DC) or Illuminated Compartment (IC)) of the arena according to the food quality condition (HQF or LQF) and to the light intensity in the IC (4 lux or 40 lux). Proportion of time spent in the DC was significantly different between our two Food quality conditions only when the IC was illuminated at 40 lux.
Proportion of time spent in each compartment (%)
Dark compartment
Illuminated compartment
4 lux
40 lux
HQF condition 50.6 ± 7.5 55.9 ± 9.6 49.4 ± 7.5 44.1 ± 9.6
LQF condition 55.4 ± 13.0 59.2 ± 16.2 44.6 ± 13.0 40.8 ± 16.2
Distribution of grooming and foraging behaviours
The best-fitting model for the proportion of time hamsters spent grooming in the HQF and LQF conditions included only the light intensity (Suppl. material 1: Table S1 and S2, respectively). More precisely, individuals groomed 4.34 and 4.08% longer in the IC when it was illuminated at 4 lux rather than 40 lux for the HQF and LQF treatments, respectively (Figure 2 and Table 2).
A In High-quality food condition, proportion of time spent grooming in the Illuminated Compartment (IC) according to the light intensity (4 lux or 40 lux) of this compartment. B In Low-quality food condition, proportion of time spent grooming in the Illuminated Compartment (IC) according to the light intensity (4 lux or 40 lux) of this compartment. The *** indicates the statistical difference at P-value < 0.001.
Mean proportion of time (%, ± S.D.) spent grooming and foraging in both compartments of the arena (DC and IC) according to the Food quality condition (HQF or LQF) and to the light intensity in the Illuminated Compartment (IC, 4 lux or 40 lux). Proportion of grooming and foraging proportion of time in the IC was significantly different between our two experimental light intensities in both Food quality conditions.
Behaviour – Testing condition
Grooming – HQF condition 60.1 ± 29.7 62.6 ± 37.1 39.9 ± 29.7 37.3 ± 37.1
Grooming – LQF condition 59.5 ± 29.7 66.4 ± 29.8 40.5 ± 29.7 33.6 ± 29.7
Foraging – HQF condition 43.4 ± 15.6 48.3 ± 19.6 56.7 ± 15.6 51.8 ± 19.6
Foraging – LQF condition 52.9 ± 19.2 45.5 ± 22.6 47.1 ± 19.2 54.5 ± 22.6
The best-fitting model for the proportion of time spent foraging in the HQF condition only included the light intensity (Suppl. material 1: Table S1). Individuals foraged 8.26% longer in the IC at 4 lux rather than at 40 lux (Figure 3 and Table 2). For the LQF condition, the best-fitting model also only included light intensity (Suppl. material 1: Table S2), but unlike in the HQF condition, individuals foraged only marginally (2.07%) longer in the IC at 4 lux than at 40 lux (Table 2).
In the high-quality food (HQF) condition, the proportion of time hamsters spent foraging in the Illuminated Compartment (IC) according to the light intensity (4 lux or 40 lux) of this compartment. The *** indicates the statistical difference at P-value < 0.001.
Effect of food palatability on the proportion of time of foraging in the IC
Considering the proportion of time of foraging in the IC, the best-fitting model solely included the food quality. Individuals foraged 12.5% longer in the IC when we placed a mealworm (HQF condition) rather than a kibble (LQF condition) below the light, whatever the light intensity (Wald's test, z = 6.78, P-value < 0.001; Figure 4 and Table 1). Then, hamsters increased their visibility to predators (i. e. frenzied and risky behaviours) in presence of highly attractive food.
The effect of food quality on the proportion of time hamsters spent foraging in the Illuminated Compartment (IC) in the high-quality food (HQF) treatment (mealworms) and low-quality food (LQF) treatment (kibble) at 40 lux. The *** indicates the statistical difference at P-value < 0.001.
In this study, we experimentally tried to simulate the impact of public lighting, one of the main pressures encountered by wildlife in suburban habitats, which can entail serious consequences for the food-seeking behaviour of hamsters. Our strategy differs from other conservation studies in Europe (Franceschini and Millesi 2003; Feoktistova et al. 2013; Čanády 2013; Surov et al. 2016) because the hamsters that are released are born in captivity and must adapt immediately to suburban conditions to survive. Our experiment may predict how hamsters could react in such an urban environment. First, we demonstrated that individuals generally avoided the illuminated area, especially in the case of high light intensity. In addition, our study also reveals that hamsters show more frenzied and risky behaviours (i.e., spend more time in illuminated conditions) in the presence of highly palatable food. Therefore, our results suggest that introducing hamsters in suburban areas could be a feasible project, but attention should be drawn to the light intensity applied and to the distance between high-quality food patches and streetlights.
In this study, we demonstrated that individuals generally avoided the illuminated compartment, particularly when grooming. We also found that avoidance of the illuminated area depended on the light intensity. Indeed, a low intensity of 4 lux (which reproduces the lighting in the peripheral zone of a streetlight) had less of an effect on hamster foraging than a lighting intensity of 40 lux (the equivalent of the lighting directly below a streetlight).
Our results suggest that hamsters living in suburban environments may generally avoid areas with street lighting. Our results confirm our predictions and corroborate the findings of previous studies that demonstrated rodents avoid illuminated areas (Farnworth et al. 2016, Bowers 1988). Such behaviour can be adaptive because it avoids detection by predators (Lockard and Owings 1974; Rosenzweig 1974; Kaufman and Kaufman 1982; Clarke 1983; Price et al. 1984; Wolfe and Summerlin 1989; Lima 1998; Jacob et al. 2017; Miller et al. 2017; review: Beier 2006), by associating light to predation risk (Orrock et al. 2004; Navarro-Castilla et al. 2018; for a review, see Lima and Dill 1990). Moreover, the avoidance of illuminated zones by rodents tends to reduce their foraging area and thus probably limits their food opportunities (Kotler 1984a, 1984b; Price et al. 1984; Bowers 1988; Vijayan et al. 2018). Indeed, O'Dowd and Hay (1980) indicated that diet composition of rodents seems to be negatively correlated with predation risk.
The hamster is a territorial and solitary species, so the probable restriction of resources due to ALAN in suburban areas might lead this animal to increase 1) the time budget allocated to foraging in its home range, and/or 2) the distances it travels – i.e. beyond the borders of its own territory – in order to complete potential food stock, both possibly entailing more frequent intraspecific conflicts. This would increase predation risk and reduce foraging efficiency (i.e. energy intake/energy used for foraging). Consequently, the highly developed lighting system in large suburban areas of Alsace is expected to have a negative impact on hamsters. Limiting the number of lamp posts, applying moderate levels of lighting or switching off streetlights during the hamsters' period of activity might be a solution to limit the adverse effects of ALAN on the behaviour, body condition and survival of hamsters released on the outskirts of suburban areas. The application of these measures would create favourable conditions for the release of hamsters raised in captivity. More generally, such conditions may be favourable to any wildlife species.
Our study also reveals that although hamsters are able to discriminate between both compartments, they show frenzied and risky behaviours when confronted with highly attractive food. If we extrapolate this lab situation to real suburban conditions, this behaviour could render hamsters more vulnerable to predation. Indeed, instead of hoarding food from the illuminated compartment to the dark compartment as they do classically by going back to their burrow in order to consume the food (Ziomek et al. 2009), in our study, hamsters consumed the mealworm immediately in the IC. The hamsters' natural aversion to light appeared to be modified in response to the high palatability of food, which has been demonstrated in other species (Nonacs and Dill 1990a, b; Underwood et al. 2017). In a real-life context, such behaviour would render them easily detectable by a predator. As a consequence, the success of releasing hamsters in suburban areas must take into consideration the behaviour of hamsters in response to highly palatable food. Our work suggests that highly palatable food plants should be planted at a sufficient distance from lighting equipment to decrease hamsters' vulnerability to predators.
This study is part of a larger research programme that will help providing advice for territorial planning in order to successfully reintroduce this species in suburban areas, and will thus contribute to the restoration of viable populations in France. We believe that testing how captive-bred animals might cope with challenging environments in controlled conditions is a necessary step before releasing animals into the wild for conservation purposes. Another recommended step (which is on the agenda of the French National Plan of Actions, Virion 2018) is to habituate captive hamsters to wild conditions (in outdoor enclosures during day and night) before releasing them in fields to increase their survival.
SMD, LG, CW and OP conceptualized this experiment. SMD achieved formal analysis and wrote the original draft. LG, CW and OP revised the manuscript.
SMD 0.40 2.000
LG 0.20 0.750
CW 0.10 0.333
OP 0.30 1.286
This work was supported by the LIFE + Biodiversity grant No. LIFE12 BIO/FR/000979 and the Ministère de l'Ecologie, du Développement durable et de l'Energie. We are indebted to Pierre Ulrich, Mark Torzynski and all the members of the Cognitive and Social Ethology group for their assistance in the fieldwork.
Language has been edited by Joanna Lignot, a professional English copy editor.
Conflicts of interest. The funders played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Becoming a fire-adapted community that can live with wildfire is envisioned as a continuous, iterative process of adaptation. We combined national and case study research to examine how experience with wildfire alters the built environment and community- and government-level wildfire mitigation, planning, and regulations. By tracking changing in buildings post-fire (2000-2013) nationally we found that rebuilding was relatively low within several years of a fire incident, however, new development often continued. Studies of policy change revealed that for some communities, the fire was a focusing event that led to changes in regulations or planning (for example, modifying building codes or creating a CWPP). In other communities, destructive fire did not spur adaptation through changes in governmental policy. In some communities, local government officials thought current policies were effective and factors beyond their control such as extreme weather were to blame for structure losses In other cases, wildfire losses were accepted as a risk of living on the landscape, considered an isolated incident that affected few or was unlikely to be repeated, or enacting regulations was seen as incompatible with local norms and government capacity. We conclude that adaptation to wildfire through WUI regulations depends on multiple factors, including past experience with fire and the geographic extent and scale of the fire event relative to the local community and its government. While communities did not often pursue changes in WUI regulations, experience with wildfire was frequently cited as the impetus for other adaptive responses, such as improving emergency response or fire suppression, and expanding education and interaction with homeowners, such as Firewise programs or government support for fuel mitigation on private lands.
Miranda H. Mockrin is a research scientist who studies conservation and land use, combining ecological and social science. Current research at the Northern Research Station focuses on understanding changing natural resource use and management with shifting human demographics, including examining mapping the growth of the wildland-urban interface (WUI) over time, examining rebuilding in the WUI after wildfire, studying housing development and its ecological and social effects, and exploring alternative forms of development such as conservation development. Research during my graduate career examined the linked ecological and social dynamics of subsistence wildlife harvesting in a Central African logging concession.


Two weeks ago, Wendy Williams filed to divorce her awful husband, Kevin Hunter.
Even Wendy's harshest critics have applauded the move, especially when they learned that she had hired security in fear of her safety around him.
Wendy Williams gave some armchair advice to Chris Brown, and he took it as a veiled insult or backhanded compliment and went off.
Before Wendy Williams served her awful husband with divorce papers, she hired a security team to keep her safe.
Months earlier, police had visited her home for a welfare check after an anonymous caller claimed that Wendy was being poisoned.
Last week, Wendy Williams filed to divorce her terrible husband. Better late than never, right?
On the surface, things have looked so amicable. We've all heard reports that he's "supportive" and has apologized profusely.
She is washing her hands of Kevin Hunter once, for all and totally and completely.
Kevin Hunter has broken his silence.
And he's said some rather incredible things in the process.
Last week, talk show villain Wendy Williams filed to divorce her terrible husband, Kevin Hunter.
Reports of his alleged cheating had been pouring in for ages, and it looks like her sobriety journey helped her make other changes in her life.
It is finally, thankfully, mercifully all over for Wendy Williams and Kevin Hunter.
The talk show host has filed for divorce from her husband of 22 years, many years after rumors of his infidelity first surfaced and about two weeks after his mistress allegedly gave birth to his baby.
Wendy Williams tries to explain her eye-catching Walmart photo and presents herself as the new public face of substance abuse and addicts.
Wendy Williams is going through so much in her personal life at the moment. Check out this new Public Service Announcement with the star.


Our Chesterton Room seats up to 12 people and is available to book for parties, meetings and intimate get-togethers. Our downstairs restaurant can seat up to 22 guests and is available for private hire. We have a number of different options, from large parties to the entire restaurant. For larger parties we do require to know in advance what menu the party will choose and a pre-order if necessary.
We can cater for a whole host of occasions, including birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, intimate weddings and business meetings.
Although we're not open for our usual service on Sundays, we are able to host private parties and events on that day subject to availability.
For enquiries about our private dining room or private hire contact us on 01223 351880 or email alex@restaurant22.co.uk.


A Denver apartment complex sells for $41M, a restaurant property in Stapleton fetches $5.3M and NAI Shames Makovsky reports the week's largest lease.
Northglenn apartments sell for $39.5M, Cap Hill office building fetches $4.7M and Savills Studley reports the week's largest lease. Plus a law firm adds more space.
Colorado's largest industrial building sells for $41M, a Broomfield office building fetches $29M and Newmark Knight Frank reports the week's largest lease.
An Aurora liquor store changes hands, an Englewood industrial property fetches $2M and NAI Shames Makovsky reports the week's largest lease.
A Broomfield industrial park sells for $12M, a Northglenn retail site fetches $7.5M, and NAI Shames Makovsky reports the week's largest lease.
San Francisco-based FPA Multifamily sells two Denver-area apartment complexes, and Sheldon-Gold Realty reports the week's largest lease.
Holland Partner Group sells a 230-unit apartment complex in Lone Tree for $62M, a Lakewood medical office building fetches $4M and NKF reports the week's largest lease.
A bakery for Lakewood, a pizza joint for Centennial and Davids, Hicks and Lampert reports the week's largest lease. And a clever new pizza joint called Coloradough Pizza.
An Aurora retail center sells for $8.45M, a southeast Denver apartment complex fetches $21.5M and Cushman & Wakefield reports the week's largest lease.
Three Uptown apartment buildings fetch $11.2M, hotels near DIA and in Englewood sell and Bartell & Co. Real Estate reports the week's largest lease.


Rockler has just added the SawStop Jobsite Saw - the first fully portable compact table saw to feature SawStop's innovative safety brake.
The Jobsite Saw can easily be stored in small spaces - simply unfold and get to work.
When your work is done, fold and move to the next task in seconds.
Rip, miter and crosscut - easily, accurately and with superior cut quality in any location.
The lightest, smallest, and most portable SawStop ever. One person can load it in seconds.
Medina, MN – Rockler Woodworking and Hardware has added the SawStop Jobsite Tablesaw to its product selection. It is the first fully portable compact table saw to feature SawStop's innovative safety brake, a feature that immediately stops the saw blade if it makes contact with skin. Its pedal-controlled stand functions as a dolly with 8-inch wheels when in the folded position, which allows users to easily move the saw around home, garage and jobsite areas, even up and down stairs.
The compact footprint of the SawStop Jobsite Tablesaw is convenient for those with limited space, especially hobbyists and do-it-yourselfers who work in a garage space shared with cars, bikes and other tools and machinery. The folding stand and rolling wheels are also very handy for contractors and others who need to transport the saw from site to site.
"The SawStop Jobsite Tablesaw is a unique combination of large saw capability and compact saw mobility," says Steve Krohmer, Rockler's vice president of product marketing and strategy. "It's perfect for people who don't have abundant space to permanently dedicate to a large table saw, and the unique safety brake feature provides peace of mind every time the saw is powered up."
Though compact and mobile, the SawStop Jobsite Tablesaw is a full-featured 10" table saw. The table extension rides on rails that slide out for a maximum rip cut of 25-1/2" right of the blade, while the sliding T-square fence ensures precise cuts and parallelism with the blade. One-turn blade elevation adjusts the blade to the desired height where competing saws require up to 25 turns to achieve the same adjustment.
The SawStop Jobsite Tablesaw (56191) is priced at $1,299 and can be ordered at rockler.com or Rockler Woodworking and Hardware stores nationwide. For store locations or a free catalog, visit http://www.rockler.com or call 1-877-ROCKLER FREE.
To learn more about Rockler, please visit http://www.rockler.com or call 1-877-ROCKLER FREE.


In case you missed Chief Boima spinning for the first-ever Okayafrica Radio episode hosted by Radio Lily last weekend, don't fret because we've got it for you right here. For an untold number of Saturdays (hopefully forever?), Boima will deliver an hour of seamless mixes with influences from Caribbean and African music. For an upbeat start to your Saturday night, be sure to tune in online to bring the sounds of the motherland to your headphones. Check out what Okayafrica loved about the set and hit the link below for the stream tomorrow night starting at 8pm.
Boima covered it all, fusing afrobeat with electro house and everything in between. If you missed the set, don't trip, not only will Chief Boima be bringing flavor to the airwaves every Saturday night, but Okayafrica will be posting a live stream after each show to hold you down until the next week. Make sure you TUNE IN every Saturday from 8-10PM EST to experience the sounds!


Legislation and technology continues to change and making sure that our engineers are up to date with the most recent regulations is paramount to our business. With this is mind we decided to share some of our knowledge and experience with our customers in the form of our new eBook - A Guide to Life Safety Systems.
'Life safety' could cover an infinite number of occurrences and risks within the workplace, all of which should be given consideration when factoring the safety of your employees and tenants. For the purpose of our eBook we looked at the buildings interior elements which are designed to protect and evacuate people within the building in case of emergencies which could include fire, earthquakes or less critical events, such as power failures.
One of the most common life safety systems are fire detection and alarm systems. These systems are usually designed to detect the presence of a fire, for example through heat or smoke detection, and then give alarm through the sounders that form part of the system.
The building may also have linked or separate fire suppression systems that will release an agent onto the fire. This suppresses the fire by either reducing the oxygen, chemical reaction with the atmosphere or by cooling the fire. Probably the most common are water sprinkler systems.
Your building will likely have portable fire extinguishers to be used by trained persons which will also form part of the life safety systems and fire emergency procedures.
Smoke can be as dangerous as the fire itself. Smoke kills more people than fire and can easily trap people preventing them from escaping. Protective measures that may be installed can include smoke extract systems, to pull the smoke away from escape routes, fire doors with smoke seals and the automatic shut down of ventilation systems.
The ability of a building to protect against fire spread is also important. Your building will have elements installed to help prevent this such as fire doors, fire compartmentation and automatic shut down of ventilation systems.
In the event of an emergency, to aid the occupants' evacuation are the emergency light systems which guide people through corridors and exits to the exterior of the building.
Do you know if the maintenance schedule for your life safety systems meets current regulations? Is there anything that you, as the Responsible Person for your building, can do yourself to ensure the building remains safe?
These are the questions that we have looked at in our eBook - A Guide to Life Safety Systems. To find out more about the regulations, British Standards and how best to maintain your life safety equipment, download our free eBook by clicking the image here..


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Mai-BS (Thailand) by Karl&Erna Co.;...
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IREIFS Private Equity Group to Re-open Bangkok Office
Paris based IREIFS Partners Private Equity is re-opening its offices in Bangkok after a 6 year absence.
Bangkok, Thailand, March 05, 2012 --(PR.com)-- When talking with Thailand based Mai-BS (Thailand), a hotel consulting company providing certain services for IREIFS, Pat Collins, Regional Director Asia Pacific based in Singapore said, "IREIFS has always had a strong belief in the growth of Thailand as an Investment destination. We are primarily a hotel and resort investor and we see strong potential for growth in this sector in Thailand over the next 10 years. The Group has recently allocated a US$200. million [THB 6,000- million] budget for equity investment in this sector in Thailand. Therefore we are re-opening our Bangkok offices at All Seasons Place."
IREIFS owns or has equity stakes in 83 hotels and resorts world wide with a total of over 25,000- rooms, plus other joint venture hotel interests. The group also has interests in Gold and other commodities in Australia, India and Dubai.
"Our focus for the immediate future is 'destination' resorts in Thailand which we can match to resorts in our existing global portfolio," said Mr. Collins. "With the economic crisis in Europe and USA global travelers are looking more and more to Asia and Thailand is number 1 on their destination list. We are talking middle to high end tourists who can communicate with their businesses easily with modern technology and are not concerned with cost of travel and accommodation," he said.
"Currently we have a 65 key luxury hospitality led resort with residential Villa component in the design phase in Mae Rim, Chiang Mai, with a cash investment of around THB 750 million and jobs for about 250 locals. This will be completed by April 2014 and will bring something special to the market," he said. "We are partners in a large [un-named] luxury Bangkok hotel and will use this as our base for expansion in the Kingdom,"
IREIFS Group closed its Bangkok regional office reluctantly in 2005 due to political and economic concerns and moved to Singapore where it has several investments in the hotel and retail sector.
"With investment offices in Paris, London, Cyprus and Dubai we have found that our investor clients as well as our private partners are seeking growth markets with stability, and Thailand offers this. Even when there are problems in Thailand it quickly bounces back from these and tourism is always on the increase, as was demonstrated at a recent AMCHAM presentation in Bangkok," said Mr. Collins. "This just confirmed our decision to re-open offices in Bangkok."
"Apart from Mae Rim, we have plans for a City Resort in Chiang Mai, and are looking at resorts in Hua Hin, Prachuapkhirikhan, Samui, Trad and Phuket. These will be partnered with our existing European, Middle East, New Zealand and Hawaiian resorts, as well as upcoming Australian acquisitions, to create a Global Lifestyle Resorts brand second to none for the discerning traveler who wants to escape Europe." said Collins.
Currently in talks with several Bangkok based Boutique Hotel Managers/Operators IREIFS believes it will close deals in the Kingdom very soon. "Our people have been on the ground here for several months and things look very promising, we are back in Bangkok and here for the long term."
Being a privately owned investment house IREIFS normally does not advertise its investments due to confidentiality issues but, "For Thailand we decided to open up a little as we are so happy to be back."
"Thailand has been a friend to us in the past and we want to give something back now. We believe in Thailand and its future, so we will help anyway we can through investment, tourism and community service," Collins said.
Mai-BS (Thailand)
Klaus R. Rauter
http://mai-bs.com
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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For additional information on Garbage Collection Service in Llano, NM services look into the Budget Dumpster company. They are a new national company with a good history of affordable, advance, all inclusive prices and good customer service. 1-866-284-6164 You may be planning to invest in a home renovation venture or need to construct a new house for yourself; you can't simply do the construction or a home remodeling activity without having to hire a professional dumpster accommodations company. By means of dumping all the waste materials into their dumpster, you are totally finished with your job.Following are a handful of major reasons that you can must use Garbage Collection Service in Llano, NMs corporations for your home development or redevelopment project.
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With every venture, there is going to be waste to eliminate. When you have a working partnership which has a Garbage Collection Service in Llano, NM company, your team will always know what is correct dumping substance. Dumpster rental companies will tell you what resources are appropriate for dumpsters, but they could also let you know the best way to properly eliminate those improper materials as well, like abandoned paint or any other hazardous substance. Improperly disposed of material may result in heavy penalties and sanctions that could cost you more than just a few bucks. It could cost you your business. That's why it is important to create those solid working relationships.
There are many products in your storage area and outside buildings on your property that you may no longer use. You could have been in your home for over 2 decades. You know how significantly junk you may accumulate throughout twenty or more years. If you have were built with a family you will possess even more items to get rid of.
Check the dumpster companies plan on what is not added to his or her dumpster(s). As an illustration, most dumpster corporations will not permit concrete into their dumpster. Concrete can stick along with cause the dumpster to help weigh much more, take up bedroom and in essence make the dumpster much less useful mainly because it should be.
A few junk removal companies present labor, and thus they'll not merely provide the dumpster and take away the trash, however they'll in addition help you take items from the home to the18 wheeler or dumpster. Take into account whether you'll need this service in accordance with the scale in the cleanout and your family along with friends' ability to accomplish this heavy lifting yourselves. It will very likely cost more, nevertheless it can get the project done speedily. Note that when you're paying for toil, especially if you might be paying constant, you may not have the capacity to take the time to search through every field and case in search of emotional items.


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SEC brings more bank-like regulation to mutual funds
The Securities and Exchange Commission has finalized new rules for mutual funds and certain exchange traded funds that impose new disclosure requirements, board responsibilities, and liquidity risk management programs. The requirements are the latest in a series of regulations aiming to impose bank-like regulation upon non-banks.
"I see this and some of the other proposals they have had, as the SEC trying to stay ahead of the Financial Stability Oversight Council [a multi-regulator body, established by the Dodd-Frank Act, to address systemic risk]. The SEC is the primary financial regulator for the mutual fund industry and, with the FSOC making noises about regulating the asset management industry, this is the Commission getting in front of that and saying, 'We got this one,' " says Jack Murphy, a partner with the law firm Dechert who specializes in mutual funds. "I imagine the conversation between the FSOC and the SEC being something along the lines of, 'Let us take a stab at this and then you can look at where we end up.'"
As for the industry's perspective, it "would much rather deal with the SEC regulations than FSOC and banking regulations, if only because the SEC understands the mutual fund industry far better."
The new reporting requirements, according to Megan Johnson, a financial services partner with Dechert, "are the SEC saying it needs all this information in order to tell the FSOC that it knows what funds hold illiquid securities, what funds have Russian equities, for example, and where pockets of potential problems exist." The SEC "wants to beat back people who are trying to come onto its turf to regulate funds."
The new SEC rules apply to open-end funds, those accepting unlimited investment shares that can be issued or redeemed at any time.
"These new rules represent a sweeping change for the industry by requiring strong transparency provisions and enhanced investor protections," SEC Chair Mary Jo White said. "Funds will more effectively manage liquidity risk and both Commission staff and investors will receive additional and better-quality information about fund holdings."
Reporting modernization rules will enhance data reporting for mutual funds, ETFs, and other registered investment companies. With these rules, registered funds will be required to file a new monthly portfolio reporting form (Form N-PORT) and a new annual reporting form (Form N-CEN) that will require census-type information. The information will be reported in a structured data format, which will allow both the Commission and the public to better analyze the information. The rules will also require enhanced and standardized disclosures in financial statements and will add new disclosures in fund registration statements relating to a fund's securities lending activities.
"Funds will more effectively manage liquidity risk and both Commission staff and investors will receive additional and better quality information about fund holdings."
Mary Jo White, Chairman, SEC
The liquidity risk management rules are designed to promote effective liquidity risk management for mutual funds and ETFs, reducing the risk that funds will not be able to meet shareholder redemptions and mitigating potential dilution of the interests of fund shareholders. The new rules will require mutual funds and ETFs to establish liquidity risk management programs that address multiple elements, including classification of the liquidity of fund portfolio investments and a highly liquid investment minimum. The rules also strengthen the 15 percent limit on illiquid investments and will require enhanced disclosure regarding fund liquidity and redemption practices.
Another rule will permit mutual funds to use swing pricing—the process of adjusting a fund's net asset value to pass on to purchasing or redeeming shareholder costs associated with their trading activity.
Most funds would be required to begin filing reports on new Forms N-PORT and N-CEN after June 1, 2018, while fund complexes with less than a $1 billion in net assets would be required to begin filing reports on Form N-PORT after June 1, 2019.
"The SEC appears to have been responsive to some of the industry's concerns with the proposed rule," says Kenneth Burdon, investment management counsel for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. "For example, the liquidity buckets appear more workable and the rule release emphasizes the board's oversight role, in contrast to the more specific and detailed board approval requirements in the proposed rule."
The original rule required firms to classify each fund holding into one of six "liquidity buckets" based on how effectively and rapidly each asset could be liquidated; the final rule reduces the number of categories to four.
"A significant change from the proposed rule is the revision to the 15 percent limit for illiquid investments," Burdon says. "Now, for example, to determine whether an investment is illiquid, a fund is required take into account the market depth for trading position sizes the fund would reasonably anticipate trading. The proposed rule stated that a fund would not need to consider the size of its position in the asset for purposes of the 15 percent limitation."
Regarding a breach of the 15 percent limit, "if that breach is ongoing, the final rule requires the board to make a determination that management's plan to bring the fund back into compliance with the 15 percent limit continues to be in the best interests of the fund," he explains. "What is interesting is how the requirement to consider a strategy's appropriateness for an open-end fund could interact with the new manner in which illiquidity is evaluated for purposes of the 15 percent test. The final rule release candidly recognizes this interaction could lead a fund to reconsider its structure or continued operation as an open-end fund."
LIQUIDITY RISK MANAGEMENT
The following is from a Securities and Exchange Commission fact sheet on liquidity risk management programs.
Rule 22e-4 would require mutual funds and other open-end management investment companies, including ETFs, to establish liquidity risk management programs. The rule would exclude money market funds from all requirements of this rule and ETFs that qualify as "in-kind ETFs" from certain requirements. The liquidity risk management program would be required to include multiple elements, including:
Assessment, management, and periodic review of a fund's liquidity risk
Classification of the liquidity of fund portfolio investments
Determination of a highly liquid investment minimum
Limitation on illiquid investments
Board oversight
Assessment, Management, and Periodic Review of a Fund's Liquidity Risk: Funds would be required to assess, manage, and periodically review their liquidity risk, based on specified factors. Liquidity risk would be defined as the risk that a fund could not meet requests to redeem shares issued by the fund without significant dilution of remaining investors' interests in the fund.
Classification of the Liquidity of Fund Portfolio Investments: Each fund would be required to classify each of the investments in its portfolio. The classification would be based on the number of days in which the fund reasonably expects the investment would be convertible to cash in current market conditions without significantly changing the market value of the investment, and the determination would have to take into account the market depth of the investment. Funds would be required to classify each investment into one of four liquidity categories: highly liquid investments, moderately liquid investments, less liquid investments, and illiquid investments. Additionally, funds would be permitted to classify investments by asset class, unless market, trading, or investment-specific considerations with respect to a particular investment are expected to significantly affect the liquidity characteristics of that investment as compared to the fund's other portfolio holdings within that asset class.
Determination of a Highly Liquid Investment Minimum: A fund would be required to determine a minimum percentage of its net assets that must be invested in highly liquid investments, defined as cash or investments that are reasonably expected to be converted to cash within three business days without significantly changing the market value of the investment. The fund also would be required to implement policies and procedures for responding to a highly liquid investment minimum shortfall, which must include board reporting in the event of a shortfall.
Limitation on Illiquid Investments: A fund would not be permitted to purchase additional illiquid investments if more than 15 percent of its net assets are illiquid assets. An illiquid investment is an investment that the fund reasonably expects cannot be sold in current market conditions in seven calendar days without significantly changing the market value of the investment. The determination would have to follow the same process as the other liquidity classifications, and funds would have to review their illiquid investments at least monthly.
If a fund breaches the 15 percent limit, the occurrence must be reported to the board, along with an explanation of how the fund plans to bring its illiquid investments back within the limit within a reasonable period of time, and if it is not resolved within 30 days, the board must assess whether the plan presented to it is in the best interest of the fund and its shareholders.
Board Oversight: A fund's board, including a majority of the fund's independent directors, would be required to approve the fund's liquidity risk management program and the designation of the fund's adviser or officer to administer the program. The fund's board also would be required to review, at least annually, a written report on the adequacy of the program and the effectiveness of its implementation.
Source: Securities and Exchange Commission
Dechert's Murphy agrees that the final rule was scaled back based on industry feedback to the proposal. The reduction in the number of "liquidity buckets" means they are now "set up a lot closer to the way fund groups look at liquidity now." Funds can now focus on asset classes, rather than on an investment-by-investment basis, and they have more flexibility.
Reporting requirements, although more manageable in the final rule, still raise concerns.
It is not that the public disclosure of information is increasing, because it is still on a quarterly basis with 60-day lag, Johnson says. One concern raised in the rulemaking process, however, is that given the quantity and different kinds of data that will be filed in structured data format, "competitors, institutional investors, and third parties will have an easier time analyzing some of it."
The SEC was not ultimately persuaded by concerns that proprietary fund strategies could be reverse engineered from the data, although it did agree to allow a measure of non-public reporting for information that might be considered confusing, stale, and even harmful to investors because it is outdated.
Johnson understands the value the SEC sees in this reporting.
"In response to the Russian embargo a couple of years ago, the staff had to individually go out to people they thought might have significant holdings in Russia and wanted to get more information from them so they could report to Treasury and figure out how potential sanctions were going to affect funds," she says. "With the kind of reporting that is going to come with this modernization proposal, they would already have much of that data and not have to have done so much manual inquiry."
"Funds understand why the SEC wants this data," she adds. "But it is a huge amount of information they are going to have to be providing every month and it is going to be a challenge to get it all set up."
Board oversight is stressed in the new rule, especially in keeping strategies clear of the 15 percent ceiling on illiquid assets.
"It is important for the board to really listen to how the adviser views the liquidity for each fund within the complex," says Brenden Carroll, an associate in the Dechert's financial services group. "There are many boards that already do this now, and this mandates what they are already doing to some extent. Some of it will be more formal and better documented, but many boards already ask about whether a strategy is appropriate for an open-end fund and whether there is potential danger for any liquidity mismatches. The first step is to really understand how the adviser plans to administer this program and what they see as potentially affecting any given fund."
The SEC took this step, he says, to bring some of the less robust programs up to where other programs already are.
One area where the SEC took no action is with a proposal to allow funds to distribute shareholder materials electronically, rather than traditional, expensive mailings that many suspect most investors all but ignore. Among those who lobbied against the rule: paper and envelope companies.
A split board, at best, means the proposal will be resubmitted on another day. "Fund complexes would be thrilled to have that on the agenda, because it could potentially offset some of the costs that are going to be inherent in all of the reporting information," Johnson says.
We are not responsible for the content of external sites
https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-215.html
https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/piwowar-statement-open-meeting-101316.html
https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/stein-statement-open-meeting-101316.html


To live in New Orleans is to master the art of juggling.
On his sparse new collection of tunes, Rubin doesn't mind letting you see him sweat as he struggles to keep both sides of his identity balanced. The cuts are rough—often the first take—but Mark's skilled playing and Catskills wit keep the whole enterprise aloft as he cycles between stories of cultural appropriation ("Royal Street Shuffle"), the War on Drugs ("Single Joint") and parking lot fights ("Ballpeen Clawhammer").


text:
The Defendant Who Wasn't There
Judy Rabinovitz,
Special Counsel,
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project
(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)
On Thursday, I observed proceedings in the case of Mohammed Kamin, an Afghan detainee who has been held for more than five years, first in Bagram and then in Guantánamo. Kamin faces possible life in prison on charges that he "provided material support for terrorism by receiving arms training at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan for several months in 2003." Because Kamin is boycotting his hearing, the proceedings were held in his absence.
The proceedings not only offered a glimpse into what is happening in the prison camps but also highlighted several recurring themes with respect to military commission process. They revealed the difficult ethical questions faced by military defense counsel who are assigned to represent detainees but do not wish to participate, the overarching and systemic failure of the discovery process, and the ad hoc nature of the proceedings themselves. Incredibly, more than five years into Kamin's detention, the government is still trying to figure out how these proceedings should operate, including what kind of resources must be provided to the defense.
The first part of the hearing consisted of witness testimony to establish why Kamin was not present. The officer who had been responsible for bringing him to court said that when she went to Kamin's cell to notify him of the hearing, he ripped up the notice, began kicking and hitting the cell door and stated that he was innocent and it was President Bush who should be on trial.
A prosecution motion to compel Kamin's presence by "forcibly extracting" him from his cell was denied after defense lawyers objected on the grounds that it would put Kamin and others at risk. The judge stated that forcing Kamin to appear would serve no purpose and would only lead to a repeat of what had happened last May when a "forcible extraction" order was issued to compel Kamin's attendance at his arraignment. At that time, Kamin resisted the officers and was brought to court in shackles with bruises, cuts and a swollen eye.
One of the key issues for the defense — and for the court — is to determine if Kamin is competent to waive his right to counsel. Indeed, this is currently an issue in a number of military commission cases where detainees have indicated that they do not want to participate in the proceedings. Defense counsel for Kamin emphasized the "Catch-22" in which he found himself — whether, and how, to represent the interests of a prisoner who has stated that he does not want such representation.
A mental status evaluation that found Kamin competent to participate in the proceedings was recently conducted by two military doctors — one, Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, has been criticized for assisting in the interrogation process — even though the doctors had never met or observed the defendant. Understandably, defense counsel objected to the adequacy of that evaluation emphasizing the need for a civilian psychiatric expert who could challenge its findings and offer advice on representing a detainee who was resistant to such representation. The defense is proposing a civilian psychiatric expert experienced in working with terrorism suspects. The prosecution objected to the need for a civilian expert and insisted that if an additional defense expert was warranted, that person should come from the military. The judge did not rule on the issue. However, he asked the prosecution to start the process of identifying such an expert, while promising that the defense would have an opportunity to challenge the expert's qualifications.
A key issue in all of the military commission cases is the government's withholding of documents that are critical for a full and fair hearing. (Indeed, earlier in the week the government dismissed without prejudice five military commission cases, citing, in some accounts, new material received from government agencies which required reassessment of the cases.) Kamin's case is no exception. Citing the intelligence community's "systemic failure" to cooperate, the defense noted that the government's continued delay in responding to discovery requests would ultimately deprive Kamin of government documents to which he is entitled. Defense counsel argued that dismissal of the case with prejudice was warranted not only as a sanction for the government's failure to comply with the discovery process in a timely manner, but also as a deterrent to the intelligence agencies that continue to drag their feet, jeopardizing the integrity of the process.
The prosecution responded that the "systemic problems" referred to by the defense did not apply in this case, that there simply were not that many responsive documents, and that the proper way to proceed would be a motion to compel. The judge opted for the government's proposal, in part based on his assessment that Kamin was not being prejudiced by the discovery delay because he had chosen not to cooperate with the proceedings. Highlighting the bizarre nature of the proceedings, in which Kamin has been detained for more than five years and can remain detained even if he were found not guilty, the judge stated "this is not a situation where you have a guy in pretrial confinement or awaiting charges so he can get on with his life."
More in National Security
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Whole Foods "Natural Mom & Baby Bazaar"
Whole Foods put on a "Natural Mom & Baby Bazaar" today and asked if Daddy Cakes® would like to participate....good Daddy's always like to help out whenever asked. It was so much fun watching the little kids eat our goodies and then come back around for seconds...and then thirds! Don't forget to call Whole Foods and reserve a spot for brunch sponsored by Daddy Cake® on June 20th to celebrate Father's Day (remember: Dad eat's Free) & profits go to a local food bank!


Across Europe airports are getting busier and with that comes an increase in demand for property to cater, not just for the needs of an ever-growing number of passengers but also, for the ever-growing airfreight volumes.
London Heathrow, the largest freight airport in the UK, remains the most expensive industrial location in Europe for occupiers, with prime off-airport rents now at €238 per sq m compared with €42 per sq m in Liège and Antwerp.
For prime industrial space over 5,000 sq m rents range from €38 per sq m in Liège, up to €211 per sq m around London"s airports. Such units are not necessarily located adjacent to the airport.
The airfreight market in the UK is dominated by the three biggest London area airports (Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted), which together Air freight companies are relocating to airports that can serve the booming markets in Eastern Europe. The growth of air freight traffic at these airports is expected to stimulate demand for the development of property and infrastructure facilities accounted for 73.4 per cent of cargo handled in 2006.
Several regional airports in the UK have increased their cargo handling capabilities in recent years, largely as a result of the growth of "integrators", companies offering door-to-door delivery services, usually using their own road transport, handling, transit warehousing facilities and aircraft. Examples include DHL, Fedex, UPS and TNT.
For the 12 months to June 2007, growth of prime rents for industrial property was reported for seven of the 25 airports covered by King Sturge"s survey, 16 saw no change, while rents fell back at two.
Rent growth was strongest at Gatwick, Birmingham and Bournemouth with prime rents at the mid point of 2007 some eight to nine per cent higher than the preceding year.
Across Europe growth in prime industrial rental values for both large and small industrial property picked up over 2006. The increase was due to stronger economic activity and increased volumes of cargo passing through Europe, as a consequence of booming international trade.
The major Western European hub airports continue to lead the market in terms of freight throughput, with freight-handling companies taking advantage of the international network of passenger flights routed through these airports to carry cargo.
Compared with cargoes transported by water or road, airfreight represents a small percentage of the total cargo volume transported throughout Europe.
The cargoes that are moved by air are those for which value and delivery time are more critical, be that general air freight which may take several days to deliver or express air freight for which delivery time is measured in hours. Traditionally, airfreight has been used for high-value commodities, fragile goods and commercial documents such as legal and financial papers. However, with increases in capacity and declining freight rates the range of goods carried by air has widened. Now, perishable commodities such as luxury foods, exotic fruits, chilled meat, fish and flowers, newspapers and electronic products such as mobile phones are growth areas for air transport. Growth in airfreight transportation is expected to continue, driven by increasing consumer demand across Europe for these commodities.


text:
Q: Question on Antisymmetric relation I have a relation where xβy if and only if x is a multiple of y. β is defined on the set of integers, The book says it is not antisymmetric. However when i test it, i came out with this:
Let x = ky and y = lx, which leads to x = klx.
Divide both side by x, i get 1=kl, which therefore prove that x is equal to y. and i thought it is a anti-symmetric, But the book says its not antisymmetric, is there something wrong for my answer? thank You!

A: The problem is that $kl=1$ doesn't imply k=l=1 but holds for $k=l=-1$ too.
In fact $x=-2$ and $y=2$ leads to a counterexample, try it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
package com.hp.autonomy.frontend.find.core.configuration;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonDeserialize;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.annotation.JsonPOJOBuilder;
import com.hp.autonomy.frontend.configuration.ConfigException;
import com.hp.autonomy.frontend.configuration.SimpleComponent;
import com.hp.autonomy.types.requests.idol.actions.tags.FieldPath;
import lombok.Builder;
import lombok.Data;
import lombok.EqualsAndHashCode;

@Data
@EqualsAndHashCode(callSuper = false)
@Builder(toBuilder = true)
@JsonDeserialize(builder = TrendingConfiguration.TrendingConfigurationBuilder.class)
public class TrendingConfiguration extends SimpleComponent<TrendingConfiguration> {
    private static final String SECTION = "Trending";

    private final FieldPath dateField;
    private final Integer defaultNumberOfBuckets;
    private final Integer minNumberOfBuckets;
    private final Integer maxNumberOfBuckets;
    private final Integer numberOfValues;

    @Override
    public void basicValidate(final String configSection) throws ConfigException {
        if (dateField == null || dateField.getNormalisedPath().isEmpty()) {
            throw new ConfigException(configSection, "dateField must be provided");
        }

        validateInteger(defaultNumberOfBuckets, "Default number of buckets");
        validateInteger(minNumberOfBuckets, "Minimum number of buckets");
        validateInteger(maxNumberOfBuckets, "Maximum number of buckets");
        validateInteger(numberOfValues, "Number of values");

        if (maxNumberOfBuckets < defaultNumberOfBuckets || minNumberOfBuckets > defaultNumberOfBuckets) {
            throw new ConfigException(configSection, "Default number of buckets must lie between max and min");
        }
    }

    private void validateInteger(final Integer integer, final String description) throws ConfigException {
        if (integer == null || integer <= 0) {
            throw new ConfigException(SECTION, description + " must be provided and must be greater than 0");
        }
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("WeakerAccess")
    @JsonPOJOBuilder(withPrefix = "")
    public static class TrendingConfigurationBuilder {
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Local Sports High School Huddle Scene Lifestyle Obituaries E-Edition Legals
Rob Neufeld: Listen to 'Last Words of the Holy Ghost'
Rob Neufeld
You can take a trip to Walmart to see a cross-section of benighted poor people, as one character does in Matt Cashion's Katherine Anne Porter Prize-winning book, "Last Words of the Holy Ghost," or you can read the 12 stories in his collection.
In Cashion's view of the land of the damned in lowland Georgia and Western North Carolina, you've got dads who drink, get divorced, pick up women and get remarried. You've got women who get trapped, seek a way out and care for their sons without dictating to them. Maybe they're fatalistic or don't have the energy.
Sometimes there's a stepfather who steps up to the plate with their step-sons.
Cashion's stories are bleak, but not weak. They're heartrending and, at the same time, hardened by humor that is brilliantly and painfully hilarious.
The story about the Walmart trip — "A Serious Question" — has no boy or drunk dad in it. The point of view belongs to Charlotte, a 68-year-old woman who has retreated to coastal Georgia from a bureaucratic job in a northern city to be become a reclusive misanthrope.
Her octogenarian second cousin, Brother Michael, calls her up because his Catholic community wants to send him to a retirement home in Indiana, and he has a favor to ask. Ostensibly, it's to drive him to Walmart to buy a Dust Devil to clean his room; covertly, it's to let him move in with her, taking his deaf, manic, flea-bitten dog with him.
This sets up the farce at Walmart, where Michael jumps into a motorized cart and shouts "Whiplash!" when a woman in a wheelchair cuts him off.
Charlotte experiences explosive bowel problems and feels sick witnessing the walking wounded: a woman with a bandaged face and a cart full of bleach; a young mother oblivious to her toddler sitting on the floor putting something into his mouth; gangstas with low-slung pants to whom Michael says, "Pardon me, girls."
"Parked in the center of (one) aisle," Charlotte notices, "a teenage girl sat inside a cart — head titled on a neck too weak for it, crossed eyes ... She looked toward Charlotte and tried to smile, or so it seemed, which forced a bit of spittle to the corner of her mouth. On her lap, someone had placed a 24-roll case of toilet paper."
"Dear God," Charlotte says, "It's a literal basket case."
The brutality of the anguish is relieved at story's end by Charlotte's affection for the mangy mutt she told Michael she'd return to the shelter.
When Jesus says, love the least of these your brothers, you've got to seriously consider how far "least" goes.
For 8-year-old Hank, the immersion into least-of-these territory comes when, in the story "Penmanship," he gets permission to visit Jimmy, his biological dad in North Carolina, in order to get away from his vise-gripping teacher, Sister Fermina.
In Jimmy's custom van, Hank gets to sample Playboy magazines, learn CB lingo when his dad flirts with a female trucker and act as his father's pimp by going up to a woman in a diner and asking, "Would you like to meet my daddy?"
When Hank, left alone in a motel room at night, ventures out and interrupts his dad in flagrante with the diner hook-up in the van, Hank gets to witness the sad aftermath.
"I'm sorry," Jimmy says. "That won't ever happen again."
"Hank," Cashion writes, "thought about the sad spot his father had been staring at and tried to find it, even though the door was closed."
Hank calls his mom to return home and detects, in her speech, that his stepfather, Henry, who'd nurtured Hank's baseball pitching and cabinet making skills, has either left or been sent on his way.
A 14-year-old boy named Harold is featured in book's title story. He has fallen in love with 15-year-old Rose Carver in a Piedmont town where his stepfather has a farm. Rose promises Harold intimacies if he'd only go to her father's church and be baptized. He does and then suffers multiple heartbreaks.
His return home presents him with a situation like Hank's. His generous, rural stepfather has left and his mother suggests a fishing trip with her upscale new boyfriend.
"His heart was a trout lying in the woods," Cashion writes. "A sun-baked trout whose mouth kept moving, spilling final words from the Holy Ghost ... He wanted to wander through the woods until he found it. He would put it in his pocket, or wear it around his neck, and present it to the first girl who smiled at him."
Cashion is virtuosic in his story-making, not only ranging from rough barbs to romantic poetry, but also experimenting with narrative forms.
In "Clarissa Drives John-Boy to the Jacksonville Airport," Clarissa, an earthy woman, takes an aspiring writer to the airport to go to college. The whole story is her narration about her life, interrupted by her noting her passenger's sickly look and suggesting he crack a window.
The young man hesitates getting out, and she says, "You mean to tell me after all I done told you about everything I done been through, you too scared to get out of the car?"
When you look at how various great writers are bringing their home people to literary consciousness — Ron Rash's noble survivors and victims; Lee Smith's chaos-managing laughing folk; Dorothy Allison's assertive fighters; George Singleton's cracked villagers — you can further appreciate Cashion's mouthing wounded.
Rob Neufeld writes the weekly book feature for the Citizen-Times. He is the author and editor of six books and the publisher of the website The Read on WNC. He can be reached at RNeufeld@charter.net or 828-505-1973. Follow him @WNC_chronicler on Twitter.
Matt Cashion presents his book "Last Words of the Holy Ghost" at 3 p.m. March 13 at Malaprop's Bookstore/Café, Asheville; at 11 a.m. March 17 at Wilkes Community College, in Wilkesboro; and at 5 p.m. March 18 at Hub City Bookshop, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
© 2022 www.citizen-times.com. All rights reserved.


text:
Q: How to ask for user input in a Git hook? I have been trying to write a simple bash script as a pre-push hook, in which I check for missing test files when pushing Java code.
The problem is: the read command isn't waiting for user input, it proceed as if no input has been entered.
has_java="git diff --stat --cached origin/master | grep \"src\/main.*\.java\""
has_test="git diff --stat --cached origin/master | grep \"src\/test.*\.java\""

exit_val=0

if eval $has_java; then
    if eval $has_test; then
        :
    else
        echo "*** NO TESTS WERE FOUND WHILE PUSHING JAVA CODE ***"
        read -n1 -p "Do you want to CONTINUE pushing? [Y/n]" doit
        case $doit in
            n|N) exit_val=1 ;;
            y|Y) exit_val=0 ;;
            *) exit_val=0 ;;
        esac
    fi
fi

A: Git hooks do not use standard input. Thus, one must attach the input from the terminal: dev/tty.
Simply appending the terminal at the end of the command makes it work:
read -n1 -p "Do you want to CONTINUE pushing? [Y/n]" doit < /dev/tty