scholarly journals Great Himalayan Leaf-Nosed Bats Produce Different Territorial Calls to Respond to Sympatric Species and Non-Living Objects

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 2040
Author(s):  
Hexuan Qin ◽  
Lei Feng ◽  
Xin Zhao ◽  
Congnan Sun ◽  
Jiang Feng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Territory Defense ◽  
Echolocation Calls ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Living Objects ◽  
Acoustic Responses

Territorial signals are important for reducing the cost of territory defense. Normally, male animals will produce keep-out signals to repel intruders from entering their territory. However, there is currently no evidence that bats can adjust their territorial calls to respond differently to sympatric species or non-living objects. In this study, we simulated the process of territory defense in male Great Himalayan leaf-nosed bats (Hipposideros armiger) toward two sympatric species (Hipposideros pratti and Rhinolophus sinicus) and four different non-living objects (a fur specimen of H. armiger, a bat model, a speaker, and a speaker with playback of H. armiger echolocation calls) to investigate their acoustic responses. There were significant differences in the territorial call complexity, syllable rate, and syllable ratio produced by H. armiger under the different experimental conditions. Our results confirmed that bats can adjust their territorial calls to respond to different sympatric species and non-living objects. The results will further our understanding of animal cognition and interactions among bat species from an acoustic perspective.

scholarly journals More for less: predicting and maximizing genomic variant discovery via Bayesian nonparametrics

Biometrika ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Masoero ◽  
Federico Camerlenghi ◽  
Stefano Favaro ◽  
Tamara Broderick
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Allocation ◽  
Bayesian Nonparametrics ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
Variant Discovery ◽  
Fixed Budget ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Genomic Variant

Abstract While the cost of sequencing genomes has decreased dramatically in recent years, this expense often remains non-trivial. Under a fixed budget, scientists face a natural trade-off between quantity and quality: spending resources to sequence a greater number of genomes or spending resources to sequence genomes with increased accuracy. Our goal is to find the optimal allocation of resources between quantity and quality. Optimizing resource allocation promises to reveal as many new variations in the genome as possible. In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian nonparametric methodology to predict the number of new variants in a follow-up study based on a pilot study. When experimental conditions are kept constant between the pilot and follow-up, we find that our prediction is competitive with the best existing methods. Unlike current methods, though, our new method allows practitioners to change experimental conditions between the pilot and the follow-up. We demonstrate how this distinction allows our method to be used for more realistic predictions and for optimal allocation of a fixed budget between quality and quantity.

Preenrichment Conditions for Effective Recovery of Salmonella in Foods and Feed Ingredients

1979 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Y. D'AOUST ◽  
C. MAISHMENT
Keyword(s):  
Brilliant Green ◽  
False Negative ◽  
Food Samples ◽  
Contamination Level ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Feed Ingredients ◽  
Selective Enrichment ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
False Negative Results ◽  
The Cost

The efficacy of Clausen, EE, Eugon, GN, Tergitol 7, lactose and nutrient broths as Salmonella preenrichment media was evaluated using 165 food samples with an incident contamination level ranging from 1.5 to 460 salmonellae/100 g. Replicate food samples (100 g) were preenriched in each of seven media (900 ml) for 6 h and 24 h at 35 C; various amounts (10, 1.0 and 0.1 ml) of preenriched cultures were selectively enriched in tetrathionate brilliant green (43 C) and selenite cystine (35 C) broths and plated on bismuth sulfite and brilliant green sulfa agars. Short (6 h) and 24-h preenrichment conditions resulted in 26 (16%) and 8 (5%) false negative results, respectively. Recovery of Salmonella from 6-h but not 24-h preenrichment cultures also varied directly with the portion of culture inoculated into selective enrichment broths. None of the preenrichment media tested performed satisfactorily at 6 h of incubation where levels of recovery ranged from 32 to 62%; at 24 h, good recovery was obtained with all media (95 to 100%) except EE broth (74%). The incidence of competitive flora was significantly higher on selenite + brilliant green sulfa than on tetrathionate + bismuth sulfite; transfer volumes (10 and 1.0 ml) and preenrichment media did not contribute significantly to the presence of non-salmonellae on plating media. Characteristics of preenrichment media were found to be less critical than preenrichment incubation time for effective recovery of Salmonella in foods and feed ingredients. The use of 1.0- rather than 10-ml preenrichment transfer volume is indicated because it proved to be completely reliable under our experimental conditions and reduced the cost of analyses.

Influence of body weight, swimming characteristics, and water temperature on the cost of swimming in brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)

2000 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
pp. 1482-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ming Tang ◽  
Daniel Boisclair ◽  
Chantal Ménard ◽  
John A Downing
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Water Temperature ◽  
Brook Trout ◽  
Salvelinus Fontinalis ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Average Difference ◽  
Fish Swimming ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Fish Weight ◽  
The Cost

We performed respirometry experiments to estimate the spontaneous swimming costs of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) for 24 combinations of fish weight (3.5, 17, and 32 g), water temperature (4, 12, and 18°C), and respirometer size (27, 54, and 108 L). Fish swimming characteristics were estimated for each experiment using videocamera recordings and image analysis. Under our experimental conditions, average swimming characteristics of fish, such as swimming speed and turning and acceleration rates, varied from 2.5- to 29-fold. Our data, alone or combined with similar published results on brook trout weighing 1 g, indicated that fish weight was the only variable that could explain a statistically significant proportion of the variations of spontaneous swimming costs for that species (r2 = 0.91). Our work confirms, with a wider range of experimental data, that spontaneous swimming costs of fish are 3- to 22-fold (8-fold average difference) more energy demanding than predicted by forced swimming models developed using fish swimming at constant speeds and directions in flumes.

scholarly journals Asymmetric habitat isolation and sexual isolation predicted by the cost of migration and hybridization generate novel signatures of reinforcing selection

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linyi Zhang ◽  
Glen Ray Hood ◽  
Jim R Ott ◽  
Scott P Egan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Sexual Isolation ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
Habitat Isolation ◽  
Quercus Virginiana ◽  
Alternative Habitat ◽  
Allopatric Species ◽  
Gall Wasps ◽  
The Cost

Reinforcement is an evolutionary process whereby increased prezygotic reproductive isolation evolves in response to the cost of hybridization. Despite theory predicting that multiple prezygotic barriers can evolve via reinforcement, most empirical studies examine a single barrier. We test novel predictions for the reinforcement of both habitat isolation and sexual isolation between ecologically divergent lineages under asymmetric migration: the lineage that emigrates more should evolve stronger habitat isolation due to the lower fitness of immigrants in the alternative habitat, while the lineage that receives more immigrants should exhibit stronger sexual isolation due to the lower fitness of hybrids. We found both signatures of reinforcement in two sympatric sister species of gall wasps that are host specific to the southern live oaks, Quercus virginiana and Q. geminata, respectively. Specifically, we observed stronger habitat isolation in the species with higher emigration rates, Belonocnema treatae, and stronger sexual isolation in the species facing more immigrants, B. fossoria. In contrast, comparisons of both species to a third, allopatric, species showed that B. kinseyi exhibited both lower habitat isolation and sexual isolation than the sympatric species, consistent with the classic predictions of reinforcement. Our study provides a rare examination of the interplay of ecology and geography in the evolution of multiple reproductive barriers to gene flow. Given that asymmetric migration between ecologically divergent lineages increasingly appears to be the rule rather than the exception, concomitant asymmetries in the strength of habitat and sexual isolation could be more widespread than currently understood.

Advanced Treatment and Disinfection for Municipal Wastewater Reuse in Agriculture

1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Liberti ◽  
M. Notarnicola
Keyword(s):  
Municipal Wastewater ◽  
Wastewater Reuse ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
Advanced Treatment ◽  
Municipal Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Pathogen Inactivation ◽  
Joint Research ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Joint Research Project ◽  
The Cost

In a 3-year joint research project, approved in 1995 by the European Commission, methods for advanced treatment and disinfection of municipal wastewater to permit reuse in agriculture were investigated. Pathogen inactivation, disinfection by-products (DBP) formation and the cost effectiveness of disinfection methods involving UV rays, ozone (O3) and peracetic acid (PAA) were evaluated. The investigation was carried out on municipal effluents which had received different degrees of treatment (secondary, clarified, clarified-filtered) in a 100 m3/h pilot plant that was designed, built and operated at West Bari (S. Italy) municipal wastewater treatment plant. Under the experimental conditions investigated, the WHO microbial guideline for unrestricted reuse of wastewater in agriculture (1,000 CFU/100ml for Faecal Coliforms) was easily achieved with all three disinfectants, while the corresponding Italian standard (2 CFU/100ml) was effectively met only with UV at an O&M cost in the range 17.5-35 EURO/1000m3. Log-inactivation values ≥ 5 for both UV and PAA and ≥ 3 for O3 were obtained; selected pathogens were affected by UV and, in part, by O3. No DBPs were detected with UV and PAA, while limited formation of aldehydes was found with O3.

scholarly journals Optimizing two-dimensional renewable warranty policies for sensor embedded remanufactured products

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammar Alqahtani ◽  
Surendra M. Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Preventive Maintenance ◽  
Discrete Event ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Specific Product ◽  
Event Simulation ◽  
Recovery System ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Warranty Policies ◽  
The Impact

Purpose: Remanufactured products, in addition to being environment friendly, are popular with consumers because they can offer the latest technology with lower prices in comparison to brand new products. However, some consumers are hesitant to buy remanufactured products because they are skeptical about the quality of the remanufactured product and thus are unsure of the extent to which the product will render services when compared to a new product. A strategy that remanufacturers may employ to entice customers is to offer warranties on remanufactured products. To that end, this paper studies and scrutinizes the impact of offering renewing warranties on remanufactured products. Specifically, the paper suggests a methodology which simultaneously minimizes the cost incurred by the remanufacturers and maximizes the confidence of the consumers towards buying remanufacturing products.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses discrete-event simulation to optimize the implementation of a two-dimensional renewing warranty policy for remanufactured products. The implementation is illustrated using a specific product recovery system called the Advanced Remanufacturing-To-Order (ARTO) system. The experiments used in the study were designed using Taguchi’s Orthogonal Arrays to represent the entire domain of the recovery system so as to observe the system behavior under various experimental conditions. In order to determine the optimum strategy offered by the remanufacturer, various warranty and preventive maintenance scenarios were analyzed using pairwise t-tests along with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey pairwise comparisons tests for every scenario.Findings: The proposed methodology is able to simultaneously minimize the cost incurred by the remanufacturer, optimize the warranty price and period, and optimize the preventive maintenance strategy resulting in increased consumer confidence.Originality/value: This is the first study that evaluates in a quantitative and comprehensive manner the potential benefits of offering warranties with preventive maintenance on remanufactured products.

The experimental production of Fasciola hepatica metacercariae from three aquatic populations of Galba truncatula

2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Vignoles ◽  
L. Favennec ◽  
D. Rondelaud ◽  
G. Dreyfuss
Keyword(s):  
Fasciola Hepatica ◽  
Commercial Production ◽  
Experimental Production ◽  
Romaine Lettuce ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Massif Central ◽  
Galba Truncatula ◽  
Laboratory Investigations ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Daily Time

AbstractLaboratory investigations on three aquatic populations of Galba truncatula, originating from the Peruvian Altiplano and French Massif Central, were carried out during three successive snail generations to determine if these populations might be successfully used for the metacercarial production of Fasciola hepatica under experimental conditions. High numbers of surviving snails at day 30 post-exposure (>70%), high prevalences of F. hepatica infections (>60%), and prolonged productions of cercariae for a mean period of 35 to 47 days were observed in the three populations, whatever the snail generation. In the Peruvian population, metacercariae of F. hepatica significantly decreased in numbers from a mean of 251 in the parent snails to 124 per snail in the F2 generation, whereas no significant variation was observed in the two French populations. As these aquatic snails rarely emerged out of water, the use of these populations for the commercial production of F. hepatica metacercariae was of great interest, because the daily time spent watching the breeding boxes of snails was clearly shorter, thereby reducing the cost of producing metacercariae compared with using amphibious snails reared with romaine lettuce.

scholarly journals The use of streptomycin (dihydrostreptomycin sulfate) in the treatment of fowl coryza or "moquillo"

1969 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-58
Author(s):  
J. D. Rivera-Anaya ◽  
J. Martínez de Jesús ◽  
R. Orlandi
Keyword(s):  
Untreated Control ◽  
Spontaneous Recovery ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Intramuscular Dose ◽  
Infectious Coryza ◽  
Commercial Poultry ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Better Than

We are of the opinion that the use of streptomycin injections is definitely benefitial in controlling infectious coryza of chickens. Seventy of the seventy-eight infected, untreated control birds did not recover from coryza; 10 of these control birds died from coryza infection during the observation periods; 8 birds in the control group made an apparently spontaneous recovery for which we have no valid explanation. Whereas any treatment with streptomycin injection proved better than no treatment, the lowest dose used in these trials, i.e., 0.05 gm. subcutaneously per bird, did not seem to be effective in a large proportion of the birds treated under our experimental conditions. A single 0.10-gm. dose of streptomycin per bird proved to be more effective in curing and checking coryza than the 0.05-gm. dose. The effectiveness of the 0.10-gm. dose used subcutaneously, varied from 12.5 to 37.5 percent when the coryza-infected birds were kept in batteries in the presence of infected, untreated controls. When the single 0.10-gm. dose was injected intramuscularly, its effectiveness increased to 92.9 percent, even in the presence of infected, untreated controls in the same hen house. The effectiveness of the 0.15-gm. intramuscular dose was 75 percent. The highest effectiveness, 96.4 percent, was noted when a single intramuscular 0.20-gm. dose was used per bird. The 0.25-gm. dose had an effectiveness of 83.3 percent when injected subcutaneously, and 85.7 percent intramuscularly. We believe that the cost of the higher streptomycin dosage-levels (0.20 and 0.25 gm.) may preclude their extensive use in commercial poultry flocks, especially so when their respective effectiveness is not substantially (significantly) greater than that of lower, cheaper streptomycin doses. The use of a single, intramuscular dose of 0.10 gm. of streptomycin per bird affected seems to be an economical, efficient, and reliable means for the control of infectious coryza or "moquillo" of poultry.

scholarly journals A day at the races

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Losada ◽  
David Elsweiler ◽  
Morgan Harvey ◽  
Christoph Trattner
Keyword(s):  
Simulated Data ◽  
User Studies ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Crowd Sourcing ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Design Studies ◽  
Natural Solution ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Simulated Data Sets ◽  
Full Trial

AbstractTwo major barriers to conducting user studies are the costs involved in recruiting participants and researcher time in performing studies. Typical solutions are to study convenience samples or design studies that can be deployed on crowd-sourcing platforms. Both solutions have benefits but also drawbacks. Even in cases where these approaches make sense, it is still reasonable to ask whether we are using our resources – participants’ and our time – efficiently and whether we can do better. Typically user studies compare randomly-assigned experimental conditions, such that a uniform number of opportunities are assigned to each condition. This sampling approach, as has been demonstrated in clinical trials, is sub-optimal. The goal of many Information Retrieval (IR) user studies is to determine which strategy (e.g., behaviour or system) performs the best. In such a setup, it is not wise to waste participant and researcher time and money on conditions that are obviously inferior. In this work we explore whether Best Arm Identification (BAI) algorithms provide a natural solution to this problem. BAI methods are a class of Multi-armed Bandits (MABs) where the only goal is to output a recommended arm and the algorithms are evaluated by the average payoff of the recommended arm. Using three datasets associated with previously published IR-related user studies and a series of simulations, we test the extent to which the cost required to run user studies can be reduced by employing BAI methods. Our results suggest that some BAI instances (racing algorithms) are promising devices to reduce the cost of user studies. One of the racing algorithms studied, Hoeffding, holds particular promise. This algorithm offered consistent savings across both the real and simulated data sets and only extremely rarely returned a result inconsistent with the result of the full trial. We believe the results can have an important impact on the way research is performed in this field. The results show that the conditions assigned to participants could be dynamically changed, automatically, to make efficient use of participant and experimenter time.

Kinetic degradation of guar gum in oilfield wastewater by photo-Fenton process

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunwu Wang ◽  
Ziwang Li ◽  
Qinglong Yu
Keyword(s):  
Guar Gum ◽  
Oxidative Degradation ◽  
Oxygen Demand ◽  
Cod Removal ◽  
Fenton Process ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Initial Concentration ◽  
Initial Ph ◽  
Main Component ◽  
The Cost

Guar gum is considered as a main component of oilfield wastewater. This work is intended to optimize the experimental conditions (H2O2 dosage, Fe2+ dosage, initial concentration of organics, initial pH and temperature) for the maximum oxidative degradation of guar gum by Fenton's reagent. The kinetics of guar gum removal were evaluated by means of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the absorbance measurements. The batch experiment results showed that the optimum conditions were: H2O2 dosage, 10,000 mg/L; Fe2+dosage, 2,000 mg/L; initial concentration of organics, 413 mg/L; pH, 3 and temperature, 35 °C, under which the COD removal could reach 61.07% and fairly good stability could be obtained. Under the optimum experimental conditions, using UV irradiation to treat the wastewater, the photo-Fenton systems can successfully eliminate COD from guar gum solution. The COD removal always obeyed a pseudo-first-order kinetics and the degradation rate (kapp) was increased by 25.7% in the photo-Fenton process compared to the Fenton process. The photo-Fenton system needed less time and consequently less quantity of H2O2 to obtain the same results as the Fenton process. The photo-Fenton process needs a dose of H2O2 20.46% lower than that used in the Fenton process to remove 79.54% of COD. The cost of the photo/Fenton process amounted to RMB9.43/m3, which was lower than that of the classic Fenton process alone (RMB10.58/m3) and the overall water quality of the final effluent could meet the class Ι national wastewater discharge standard for the petrochemical industry of China.

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