Banding and radio-tracking juvenile powerful owls in Melbourne, Victoria : trials and tribulations

The Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua) is Australia's largest owl. Considering their large size they are a very cryptic species, with limited sexual dimorphism, silent fight and a highly camouflaged presence amongst secluded canopy vegetation. These features enable Powerful Owl presence to often go unnoticed and even for the trained eye, extremely difficult to study. Our research has focused on monitoring the behaviour of individual Powerful Owls in urban Melbourne, Australia.
The leg banding of Powerful Owls is a somewhat contentious issue in Australia and here we report on the suitability of different types of legs bands placed on the tarsus of juvenile Powerful Owls. There has been some debate over the band size that should be used and the consequent effects bands may pose for the owls as they mature. We also investigate the usefulness of bands as a technique to identify Powerful Owls once they have dispersed from the natal territory.
Radio-tracking juvenile Powerful Owls was also undertaken during this study, primarily to determine individual behaviour from post fledging until dispersal. This is the first study in Australia to attempt radio-tracking juvenile Powerful Owls and the results from this research highlight behavioural characteristics, mortality rates post fledging and dispersal movements for the twelve months post fledging.
Overall we found that aluminium legs bands are a useful tool for individual identification of juvenile Powerful Owls post fledgling, however, their presence is somewhat difficult to determine on mature adults as the tarsus feathers tend to cover the band and make vision from the ground difficult. Aluminium leg bands are also useful as an identification tool for deceased birds. Leather leg bands are more suitable than aluminium bands when attaching radio-transmitters as these provide more flexibility and can be removed by the owl if they become irritating.
Radio-tracking juvenile Powerful Owls provided invaluable information relating to juvenile behaviour and movements, showing that juveniles actually remain in territories adjacent to their natal territory for the twelve months post fledging. This information is vital for the successful conservation of this species, particularly in relation to habitat conservation and home-range modelling.

Wearing a sports compression garment on the performance of visuomotor tracking following eccentric exercise : a pilot study

Clinical compression garments have been shown to improve functional control in patients with motor impairments, however, investigation in functional control has not been observed whilst wearing sports compression garments. This pilot study assessed motor control changes in the bicep brachii muscle following a bout of eccentric exercise designed to induce delayed onset muscle soreness for intervals up to 14 days after exercise. Eight male participants performed 35 maximal isokinetic eccentric extensions at 90° s−1. Participants where then randomly divided into one of two groups to perform a one-dimensional elbow flexion/extension visuomotor tracking task; one group wore a sports compression garment during the task, the other acted as control (no garment). The group who wore the compression garment performed the tracking task significantly better immediately post-exercise, and at days 1, 2 and 3 post-exercise (p ≤ 0.05). Non-significant but large and moderate effects sizes (ES), in tracking, were found between the two groups on day 5 (ES = 1.3) and day 7 (ES = 0.7), respectively. Further research is necessary to elucidate these preliminary findings, however, the results suggest that the wearing of sports compression garments post-eccentric exercise has a positive effect on functional motor control.

Decentralized and robust target tracking with sensor networks

In this paper we address the problem of decentralized and robust linear filtering for target tracking using networks of (radar) sensors taking nonlinear range and bearing measurements. The algorithm introduced in this paper permits efficient data fusion from multiple sensors through a summation style fusion architecture. Moreover, we prove that the state estimation error for the linear filtering algorithm is bounded.

Visual tracking of vehicles using multiresolution analysis and neural network

This paper describes the procedure for detection and tracking of a vehicle from an on-road image sequence taken by a monocular video capturing device in real time. The main objective of such a visual tracking system is to closely follow objects in each frame of a video stream, such that the object position as well as other geometric information are always known. In the tracking system described, the video capturing device is also moving. It is a challenge to detect and track a moving vehicle under a constantly changing environment coupled to real time video processing. The system suggested is robust to implement under different illuminating conditions by using the monocular video capturing device. The vehicle tracking algorithm is one of the most important modules in an autonomous vehicle system, not only it should be very accurate but also must have the safety of other vehicles, pedestrians, and the moving vehicle itself. In order to achieve this an algorithm of multi resolution technique based on Haar basis functions were used for the wavelet transform, where a combination of classification was carried out with the multilayer feed forward neural network. The classification is done in a reduced dimensional space, where principle component analysis (PCA) dimensional reduction technique has been applied to make the classification process much more efficient. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

Position estimation and tracking of an autonomous mobile sensor using received signal strength

In this paper, an algorithm for approximating the path of a moving autonomous mobile sensor with an unknown position location using Received Signal Strength (RSS) measurements is proposed. Using a Least Squares (LS) estimation method as an input, a Maximum-Likelihood (ML) approach is used to determine the location of the unknown mobile sensor. For the mobile sensor case, as the sensor changes position the characteristics of the RSS measurements also change; therefore the proposed method adapts the RSS measurement model by dynamically changing the pass loss value alpha to aid in position estimation. Secondly, a Recursive Least-Squares (RLS) algorithm is used to estimate the path of a moving mobile sensor using the Maximum-Likelihood position estimation as an input. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated via simulation and it is shown that this method can accurately determine the position of the mobile sensor, and can efficiently track the position of the mobile sensor during motion.

Robust finite-time consensus tracking algorithm for multirobot systems

This paper studies the finite-time consensus tracking control for multirobot systems. We prove that finite-time consensus tracking of multiagent systems can be achieved on the terminal sliding-mode surface. Also, we show that the proposed error function can be modified to achieve relative state deviation between agents. These results are then applied to the finite-time consensus tracking control of multirobot systems with input disturbances. Simulation results are presented to validate the analysis.

Developing the textual turn : tracking the grammar of research case records

During action research projects a great deal of written material is produced. Some of this is data generated about the project, some about the process of the research and some is reflective writing about the researcher(s). In this article I propose that a deliberate focus on the tracking of texts might be helpful in action research, particularly if the inquiry is working within significant constraints. Working with a range of documents and informed by the work of Dorothy Smith on the texting of ruling relations, I show how a multiagency project based in one school slipped away from its original community development goals into a more 'professional service' model. I also show how the project was able to resist partially the requirement by the funding body to use a rational strategic planning model through the production of taped conversations and meta-analytic papers. Although this is a single case, I contend that this example points to the potential utility of an explicit focus on the textual practices of action research.

On the geometry of localization, tracking and navigation

The thesis characterizes the geometry of certain localization, tracking and navigation problems. For instance, the potential localization performance of certain multi-sensor systems is measurably linked to the relative sensor-target geometry. Additionally, several optimal and robust algorithms for localization and tracking are designed which exploit the underlying geometry of the problem considered.

Vision-based target tracking and surveillance with robust set-valued state estimation

Tracking a target from a video stream (or a sequence of image frames) involves nonlinear measurements in Cartesian coordinates. However, the target dynamics, modeled in Cartesian coordinates, result in a linear system. We present a robust linear filter based on an analytical nonlinear to linear measurement conversion algorithm. Using ideas from robust control theory, a rigorous theoretical analysis is given which guarantees that the state estimation error for the filter is bounded, i.e., a measure against filter divergence is obtained. In fact, an ellipsoidal set-valued estimate is obtained which is guaranteed to contain the true target location with an arbitrarily high probability. The algorithm is particularly suited to visual surveillance and tracking applications involving targets moving on a plane.

Tracking multiple mobile agents with single frequency continuous wave radar

In this paper, a novel concept to determine the velocity and the location information of multiple mobile agents using Doppler radar has been introduced. Also, an expression for the minimum number of inline sensors needed to guarantee this estimation for n number of mobile agents has been obtained. Current methods use the time derivative of the displacement of adjacent position measurements to find the velocities of agents. This method is error prone, particularly, if the agents are accelerating. In our approach we incorporate direction-of-arrival (DOA) radar which tracks the location and the velocity of each and every agent in each measurement step.

Tracking phenotypically and functionally distinct T cell subsets via T cell repertoire diversity

Antigen-specific T cell receptors (TCRs) recognise complexes of immunogenic peptides (p) and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) glycoproteins. Responding T cell populations show profiles of preferred usage (or bias) toward one or few TCRβ chains. Such skewing is also observed, though less commonly, in TCRα chain usage. The extent and character of clonal diversity within individual, antigen-specific T cell sets can be established by sequence analysis of the TCRVβ and/or TCRVα CDR3 loops. The present review provides examples of such TCR repertoires in prominent responses to acute and persistent viruses. The determining role of structural constraints and antigen dose is discussed, as is the way that functionally and phenotypically distinct populations can be defined at the clonal level. In addition, clonal dissection of “high” versus “low” avidity, or “central” versus “effector” memory sets provides insights into how these antigen specific T cell responses are generated and maintained. As TCR diversity potentially influences both the protective capacity of CD8+ T cells and the subversion of immune control that leads to viral escape, analysing the spectrum of TCR selection and maintenance has implications for improving the functional efficacy of T cell responsiveness and effector function.

Socioeconomic position and the tracking of physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness from childhood to adulthood

This study examined the influence of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) and social mobility on activity and fitness tracking from childhood into adulthood. In a prospective cohort of 2,185 Australian adults (aged 26–36 years), first examined in 1985 (at ages 7–15 years), self-reported physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness (subsample only) were measured. SEP measures included retrospectively reported parental education (baseline) and own education (follow-up). There was little evidence of a relation between childhood SEP and activity tracking, but high childhood SEP (maternal education) was associated with a 59% increased likelihood of persistent fitness, and medium childhood SEP (paternal and parental education) was associated with a 33%–36% decreased likelihood of persistent fitness. Upward social mobility was associated with a greater likelihood of increasing activity (38%–49%) and fitness (90%), and persistently high SEP was associated with a greater likelihood of increasing activity (males: 58%) and fitness (males and females combined: 89%). In conclusion, persistently high SEP and upward social mobility were associated with increases in activity and fitness from childhood to adulthood. Findings highlight socioeconomic differentials in activity and fitness patterns and suggest that improvements in education may represent a pathway through which physical activity levels can be increased and health benefits achieved