Do individuals in better condition survive for longer? Field survival estimates according to male alternative reproductive tactics and sex

There is a gap in terms of the supposed survival differences recorded in the field according to individual condition. This is partly due to our inability to assess survival in the wild. Here we applied modern statistical techniques to field-gathered data in two damselfly species whose males practice alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) and whose indicators of condition in both sexes are known. In Paraphlebia zoe, there are two ART: a larger black-winged (BW) male which defends mating territories and a smaller hyaline-winged (HW) male that usually acts as a satellite. In this species, condition in both morphs is correlated with body size. In Calopteryx haemorrhoidalis, males follow tactics according to their condition with males in better condition practicing a territorial ART. In addition, in this species, condition correlates positively with wing pigmentation in both sexes. Our prediction for both species was that males practicing the territorial tactic will survive less longer than males using a nonterritorial tactic, and larger or more pigmented animals will survive for longer. In P. zoe, BW males survived less than females but did not differ from HW males, and not necessarily larger individuals survived for longer. In fact, size affected survival but only when group identity was analysed, showing a positive relationship in females and a slightly negative relationship in both male morphs. For C. haemorrhoidalis, survival was larger for more pigmented males and females, but size was not a good survival predictor. Our results partially confirm assumptions based on the maintenance of ARTs. Our results also indicate that female pigmentation, correlates with a fitness component - survival - as proposed by recent sexual selection ideas applied to females.

Schrodinger-Poisson equations without Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition

We prove the existence of ground state solutions for a stationary Schrodinger-Poisson equation in R(3). The proof is based on the mountain pass theorem and it does not require the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On Approximate KKT Condition and its Extension to Continuous Variational Inequalities

In this work, we introduce a necessary sequential Approximate-Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (AKKT) condition for a point to be a solution of a continuous variational inequality, and we prove its relation with the Approximate Gradient Projection condition (AGP) of Garciga-Otero and Svaiter. We also prove that a slight variation of the AKKT condition is sufficient for a convex problem, either for variational inequalities or optimization. Sequential necessary conditions are more suitable to iterative methods than usual punctual conditions relying on constraint qualifications. The AKKT property holds at a solution independently of the fulfillment of a constraint qualification, but when a weak one holds, we can guarantee the validity of the KKT conditions.

ANALYSIS & STUDY OF AI TECHNIQUES FORAUTOMATIC CONDITION MONITORING OFRAILWAY TRACK INFRASTRUCTURE : Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Since the last decade the problem of surface inspection has been receiving great attention from the scientific community, the quality control and the maintenance of products are key points in several industrial applications.The railway associations spent much money to check the railway infrastructure. The railway infrastructure is a particular field in which the periodical surface inspection can help the operator to prevent critical situations. The maintenance and monitoring of this infrastructure is an important aspect for railway association.That is why the surface inspection of railway also makes importance to the railroad authority to investigate track components, identify problems and finding out the way that how to solve these problems. In railway industry, usually the problems find in railway sleepers, overhead, fastener, rail head, switching and crossing and in ballast section as well. In this thesis work, I have reviewed some research papers based on AI techniques together with NDT techniques which are able to collect data from the test object without making any damage. The research works which I have reviewed and demonstrated that by adopting the AI based system, it is almost possible to solve all the problems and this system is very much reliable and efficient for diagnose problems of this transportation domain. I have reviewed solutions provided by different companies based on AI techniques, their products and reviewed some white papers provided by some of those companies. AI based techniques likemachine vision, stereo vision, laser based techniques and neural network are used in most cases to solve the problems which are performed by the railway engineers.The problems in railway handled by the AI based techniques performed by NDT approach which is a very broad, interdisciplinary field that plays a critical role in assuring that structural components and systems perform their function in a reliable and cost effective fashion. The NDT approach ensures the uniformity, quality and serviceability of materials without causing any damage of that materials is being tested. This testing methods use some way to test product like, Visual and Optical testing, Radiography, Magnetic particle testing, Ultrasonic testing, Penetrate testing, electro mechanic testing and acoustic emission testing etc. The inspection procedure has done periodically because of better maintenance. This inspection procedure done by the railway engineers manually with the aid of AI based techniques.The main idea of thesis work is to demonstrate how the problems can be reduced of thistransportation area based on the works done by different researchers and companies. And I have also provided some ideas and comments according to those works and trying to provide some proposal to use better inspection method where it is needed.The scope of this thesis work is automatic interpretation of data from NDT, with the goal of detecting flaws accurately and efficiently. AI techniques such as neural networks, machine vision, knowledge-based systems and fuzzy logic were applied to a wide spectrum of problems in this area. Another scope is to provide an insight into possible research methods concerning railway sleeper, fastener, ballast and overhead inspection by automatic interpretation of data.In this thesis work, I have discussed about problems which are arise in railway sleepers,fastener, and overhead and ballasted track. For this reason I have reviewed some research papers related with these areas and demonstrated how their systems works and the results of those systems. After all the demonstrations were taking place of the advantages of using AI techniques in contrast with those manual systems exist previously.This work aims to summarize the findings of a large number of research papers deploying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for the automatic interpretation of data from nondestructive testing (NDT). Problems in rail transport domain are mainly discussed in this work. The overall work of this paper goes to the inspection of railway sleepers, fastener, ballast and overhead.

Automating condition monitoring of vegetation on railway trackbeds and embankments

Vegetation growing on railway trackbeds and embankments present potential problems. The presence of vegetation threatens the safety of personnel inspecting the railway infrastructure. In addition vegetation growth clogs the ballast and results in inadequate track drainage which in turn could lead to the collapse of the railway embankment. Assessing vegetation within the realm of railway maintenance is mainly carried out manually by making visual inspections along the track. This is done either on-site or by watching videos recorded by maintenance vehicles mainly operated by the national railway administrative body. A need for the automated detection and characterisation of vegetation on railways (a subset of vegetation control/management) has been identified in collaboration with local railway maintenance subcontractors and Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Administration (STA). The latter is responsible for long-term planning of the transport system for all types of traffic, as well as for the building, operation and maintenance of public roads and railways. The purpose of this research project was to investigate how vegetation can be measured and quantified by human raters and how machine vision can automate the same process. Data were acquired at railway trackbeds and embankments during field measurement experiments. All field data (such as images) in this thesis work was acquired on operational, lightly trafficked railway tracks, mostly trafficked by goods trains. Data were also generated by letting (human) raters conduct visual estimates of plant cover and/or count the number of plants, either on-site or in-house by making visual estimates of the images acquired from the field experiments. Later, the degree of reliability of(human) raters’ visual estimates were investigated and compared against machine vision algorithms. The overall results of the investigations involving human raters showed inconsistency in their estimates, and are therefore unreliable. As a result of the exploration of machine vision, computational methods and algorithms enabling automatic detection and characterisation of vegetation along railways were developed. The results achieved in the current work have shown that the use of image data for detecting vegetation is indeed possible and that such results could form the base for decisions regarding vegetation control. The performance of the machine vision algorithm which quantifies the vegetation cover was able to process 98% of the im-age data. Investigations of classifying plants from images were conducted in in order to recognise the specie. The classification rate accuracy was 95%.Objective measurements such as the ones proposed in thesis offers easy access to the measurements to all the involved parties and makes the subcontracting process easier i.e., both the subcontractors and the national railway administration are given the same reference framework concerning vegetation before signing a contract, which can then be crosschecked post maintenance.A very important issue which comes with an increasing ability to recognise species is the maintenance of biological diversity. Biological diversity along the trackbeds and embankments can be mapped, and maintained, through better and robust monitoring procedures. Continuously monitoring the state of vegetation along railways is highly recommended in order to identify a need for maintenance actions, and in addition to keep track of biodiversity. The computational methods or algorithms developed form the foundation of an automatic inspection system capable of objectively supporting manual inspections, or replacing manual inspections.

A condição crítica de André Malraux no Brasil e na Espanha : recepção crítica das obras La condition humaine, L'espoir e Antimémoires

O presente trabalho trata da recepção crítica, no Brasil e na Espanha, de três obras do escritor francês André Malraux - La Condition humaine, L’Espoir e Antimémoires. A análise fundamenta-se em alguns princípios teóricos da Literatura Comparada e utiliza noções básicas da Estética da Recepção, da Crítica Literária e da Tradução. O estudo reúne e analisa textos publicados em jornais e revistas, literários e jornalísticos, no período compreendido entre 1933, ano da publicação de La Condition humaine e 2001, ano do centenário de nascimento do escritor. Compõem também o corpus alguns textos produzidos em momentos de especial interesse da biografia do autor (participação na Guerra Civil Espanhola, visita ao Brasil, falecimento e transferência das cinzas para o Panthéon parisiense). Além da pesquisa em jornais e revistas, a Internet foi também uma fonte importante de informações. O estudo mostra que Malraux despertou inicialmente a atenção dos críticos e leitores com seus romances ideológicos, participativos e até revolucionários, adequados ao horizonte de expectativa dos leitores da época, dominada então pela política e pela ideologia, assim como revela que o interesse das gerações pós-guerra por Malraux se justifica pelo valor estético de suas obras. A pesquisa evidencia uma diferença significativa entre o Brasil e a Espanha no que se refere, de um lado, ao número de edições das obras traduzidas e, de outro, ao momento em que ocorreram as traduções. Na Espanha, a tradução começou somente a partir da década de 60, enquanto que no Brasil, de 1933 a 1973, registrou-se uma edição em português a cada década, fato que se repetiu na década de 90 e em 2001. Conta-se um total de 36 edições na Espanha e de apenas 7 edições no Brasil das três obras estudadas. Estes dados são apresentados em gráficos nos anexos da tese, assim como quatro tabelas com as máximas malrucianas, as edições das traduções brasileiras e espanholas das obras, a malruciana brasileira e a malruciana espanhola. Nos anexos, pode-se ler também o discurso pronunciado por Malraux em Madri, no dia 7 de julho de 1937 e, a título de ilustração, seguem-se fotos de Barcelona durante a Guerra Civil, com referências aos locais feitas por Malraux em L’Espoir. A bibliografia comporta, em diferentes itens, referências a textos das críticas brasileira e espanhola, a textos encontrados na Internet e às obras consultadas para a fundamentação teórica da pesquisa.

Length-weight relationship and condition factor of the mangrove crab Ucides cordatus (Linnaeus, 1763) (Crustacea, Brachyura, Ucididae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Corrective shoeing in horses: analysis of the adaptation period to the new condition imposed

O ferrageamento corretivo é um método comumente ma Dvideow. O nível de significância adotado foi de 5%. No utilizado para alterar o padrão do andamento dos animais, presente estudo, não houve diferença significativa entre os assim como na terapêutica de diversas afecções do siste-dias avaliados, a elevação em seis graus da pinça ou talões ma locomotor dos equinos. No entanto, não existem, até não gerou desconforto durante a passada, portanto, os ani o momento, estudos científicos que revelem o período de mais podem retornar às atividades regulares de exercício e adaptação do andamento dos animais a este tipo de in-treinamento imediatamente após o ferrageamento. tervenção.O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar o período de adaptação à ferraduras com elevação em seis graus da pinça ou talões em equinos caminhando em esteira rolante. O período de adaptação à ferradura foi avaliado nos tempos 0, 48 e 96 horas após cada tipo de ferrageamento proposto. Os animais foram gravados caminhando em esteira rolante. O comprimento da passada e a análise qualitativa do andamento foram realizados com o auxílio do programa Dvideow. O nível de significância adotado foi de 5%. No presente estudo, não houve diferença significativa entre os dias avaliados, a elevação em seis graus da pinça ou talões não gerou desconforto durante a passada, portanto, os animais podem retornar às atividades regulares de exercício e treinamento imediatamente após o ferrageamento.

Role of nitric oxide in the periaqueductal gray in defensive behavior in mice: influence of prior local N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor activation and aversive condition

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Mitigation of symmetry condition in positive realness for adaptive control

Feasibility of nonlinear and adaptive control methodologies in multivariable linear time-invariant systems with state-space realization (A, B, C) is apparently limited by the standard strictly positive realness conditions that imply that the product CB must be positive definite symmetric. This paper expands the applicability of the strictly positive realness conditions used for the proofs of stability of adaptive control or control with uncertainty by showing that the not necessarily symmetric CB is only required to have a diagonal Jordan form and positive eigenvalues. The paper also shows that under the new condition any minimum-phase systems can be made strictly positive real via constant output feedback. The paper illustrates the usefulness of these extended properties with an adaptive control example. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.