Explore the vast range of titles available.

Bob Crow was the most well-known and most militant union leader of his generation. This biography examines his leadership of the RMT union, examining and exposing a number of popular myths created about him by political opponents. Using the schema of his personal characteristics (including his public persona), his politics and the power of his members, it explains how and why he was able to punch above his weight in industrial relations and on the political stage, helping the small RMT union become as influential as many of its much larger counterparts. As RMT leader, he oversaw a rise in membership, a more assertive and successful bargaining approach, and led the realignment of radical left politics in response to the hegemony of 'new' Labour. While he failed to unite all socialists into one new party, he established himself as the leading popular critic of neo-liberalism, 'new' Labour and the age of austerity.

Social isolation is a significant factor to consider when assessing the health of a given population. This article reports on a study carried out during an immersion experience with graduate nursing students that considered the experiences of Native Americans on the Crow Reservation in Montana. The exploratory, descriptive qualitative design included semi-structured interviews with eight members of the Crow nation and a focus group with three graduate students. Four themes emerged from the data: Effects of Colonization, Revival of Culture and Spiritual Influences, Lack of Resources, and Societal Impact on Health. Each theme reflected the challenge of social isolation within this population. This article describes our study and focuses on this social isolation and its significant impact on the Crow People. Participants indicated that they want to rebuild their age-old cultural practices to positively impact the health of their communities. Highlighting areas of strength and recognition of history can help them to reclaim personal and national identity. Implications for nurses include exposure to cultural immersion as a learning experience and research about the social isolation in geographically remote populations.

It is unknown whether anatomical specializations in the endbrains of different vertebrates determine the neuronal code to represent numerical quantity. Therefore, we recorded single-neuron activity from the endbrain of crows trained to judge the number of items in displays. Many neurons were tuned for numerosities irrespective of the physical appearance of the items, and their activity correlated with performance outcome. Comparison of both behavioral and neuronal representations of numerosity revealed that the data are best described by a logarithmically compressed scaling of numerical information, as postulated by the Weber–Fechner law. The behavioral and neuronal numerosity representations in the crow reflect surprisingly well those found in the primate association cortex. This finding suggests that distantly related vertebrates with independently developed endbrains adopted similar neuronal solutions to process quantity. Significance Birds are known for their advanced numerical competence, although a six-layered neocortex that is thought to enable primates with the highest levels of cognition is lacking in birds. We recorded neuronal activity from an endbrain association area termed nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) in crows that discriminated the number of items in displays. NCL neurons were tuned to preferred numerosities. Neuronal discharges were relevant for the crows’ correct performance. Both the neuronal and the behavioral tuning functions were best described on a logarithmic number line, just as predicted by the psychophysical Weber–Fecher Law. Our data suggests that this way of coding numerical information has evolved based on convergent evolution as a superior solution to a common computational problem.

Plenty Coups, last great Chief of the Crow Nation, said, \"When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.\" In Lear's view, this story raises an ethical question that challenges us all: how should one face the possibility that one's culture might collapse?.

A species-wide study shows that the Hawaiian crow Corvus hawaiiensis is a highly proficient tool user, creating opportunities for comparative studies with tool-using New Caledonian crows and other corvids. Tool use in a second tropical crow species Birds in the crow family are renowned for their cognitive abilities. The New Caledonian crow Corvus moneduloides is well known for its ability to make and use foraging tools. Christian Rutz et al . show that it is not some lone outlier—it is now joined by another species from the Pacific, the Hawaiian crow Corvus hawaiiensis , better known by its indigenous Hawaiian name 'Alalā. These birds naturally develop tool-using skills when young, and proficient tool use is a species-wide capacity. The authors can say this with confidence as the 'Alalā is extinct in the wild, and they were able to test 104 of the 109 surviving members of the species at the time, all in captivity. The research suggests that the technological skills of tropical crows might be fostered by rather unusual ecological circumstances found on remote islands, such as reduced competition for embedded prey and low predation risk. The discovery of a second tool-using crow species opens up exciting opportunities for comparative studies on animal tool use. Only a handful of bird species are known to use foraging tools in the wild 1 . Amongst them, the New Caledonian crow ( Corvus moneduloides ) stands out with its sophisticated tool-making skills 2 , 3 . Despite considerable speculation, the evolutionary origins of this species’ remarkable tool behaviour remain largely unknown, not least because no naturally tool-using congeners have yet been identified that would enable informative comparisons 4 . Here we show that another tropical corvid, the ‘Alalā ( C. hawaiiensis ; Hawaiian crow), is a highly dexterous tool user. Although the ‘Alalā became extinct in the wild in the early 2000s, and currently survives only in captivity 5 , at least two lines of evidence suggest that tool use is part of the species’ natural behavioural repertoire: juveniles develop functional tool use without training, or social input from adults; and proficient tool use is a species-wide capacity. ‘Alalā and New Caledonian crows evolved in similar environments on remote tropical islands, yet are only distantly related 6 , suggesting that their technical abilities arose convergently. This supports the idea that avian foraging tool use is facilitated by ecological conditions typical of islands, such as reduced competition for embedded prey and low predation risk 4 , 7 . Our discovery creates exciting opportunities for comparative research on multiple tool-using and non-tool-using corvid species. Such work will in turn pave the way for replicated cross-taxonomic comparisons with the primate lineage, enabling valuable insights into the evolutionary origins of tool-using behaviour.

In this paper, we propose a new hybrid algorithm called sine–cosine crow search algorithm that inherits advantages of two recently developed algorithms, including crow search algorithm (CSA) and sine–cosine algorithm (SCA). The exploration and exploitation capabilities of the proposed algorithm have significantly improved. Performance of the so-called SCCSA was evaluated in unimodal, multimodal, fixed-dimensional multimodal and composite benchmark functions using robust measures. Based on in-depth analyses and statistical information, we showed that the suggested methodology could provide promising solutions comparing to other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Individuals face evolutionary trade-offs between the acquisition of costly but accurate information gained firsthand and the use of inexpensive but possibly less reliable social information. American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) use both sources of information to learn the facial features of a dangerous person. We exposed wild crows to a novel ‘dangerous face’ by wearing a unique mask as we trapped, banded and released 7–15 birds at five study sites near Seattle, WA, USA. An immediate scolding response to the dangerous mask after trapping by previously captured crows demonstrates individual learning, while an immediate response by crows that were not captured probably represents conditioning to the trapping scene by the mob of birds that assembled during the capture. Later recognition of dangerous masks by lone crows that were never captured is consistent with horizontal social learning. Independent scolding by young crows, whose parents had conditioned them to scold the dangerous mask, demonstrates vertical social learning. Crows that directly experienced trapping later discriminated among dangerous and neutral masks more precisely than did crows that learned through social means. Learning enabled scolding to double in frequency and spread at least 1.2 km from the place of origin over a 5 year period at one site.

For the purpose of usability feature extraction and prediction, an innovative metaheuristic algorithm is introduced. Generally, the term “usability” is defined by the several researchers with respect to the hierarchical-based software usability model and it has become one of the important methods in terms of software quality. In hierarchically based software, its usability factors, attributes, and its characteristics are combined. The paper presented an algorithm, i.e., modified crow search algorithm (MCSA) mainly for extraction of usability features from hierarchical model with the optimal solution under the search for useful features. MCSA is an extension of original crow search algorithm (CSA), which is a naturally inspired algorithm. The mechanism of this algorithm is based on the process of hiding food and prevents theft and hence introduced this CSA in the field of software engineering practices as an inspiration. The algorithm generates a particular number of selected features/attributes and is applied on software development life cycles models, finding out the best among them. The results of the presented algorithm are compared with the standard binary bat algorithm (BBA), original CSA, and modified whale optimization algorithm (MWOA). The outcomes conclude that the proposed MCSA performs well than the standard BBA and original CSA as the proposed algorithms generate fewer number of feature selection equal to 17 than 18 in BBA, 23 in CSA, and 19 in MWOA.