Habitat ecology and food and feeding of the herring bow crab Varuna litterata (Fabricius, 1798) of Cochin backwaters, Kerala, India

Habitat ecology and food and feeding of the herring bow crab, Varuna litterata of Cochin Backwaters, Kerala, India were investigated for a period of one year (April 2011-March 2012). Among the 15 stations surveyed, the crabs were found to occur only in 4 stations, which had a close proximity to the sea. Sediment analysis of the stations revealed that the substratum of these stations is sandy in nature and is rich in organic carbon content (0.79% to 1.07%). These estuarine crabs is euryhaline and are found to be distributed in areas with a sandy substratum, higher organic carbon content and more tidal influx. The stomach contents analysis of crabs examined showed that their diet included crustacean remains, plants, sand and debris, fishes, miscellaneous group and unidentified matter. In adults and sub-adults, crustaceans formed the dominant food group, while in juveniles, sand and debris formed the dominant group. From the present study, V. litterata was found to be a predatory omnivore capable of ingesting both animal and plant tissues

Implementation of a Neural Network Classifier for Noise Sources in the Ocean

The paper investigates the feasibility of implementing an intelligent classifier for noise sources in the ocean, with the help of artificial neural networks, using higher order spectral features. Non-linear interactions between the component frequencies of the noise data can give rise to certain phase relations called Quadratic Phase Coupling (QPC), which cannot be characterized by power spectral analysis. However, bispectral analysis, which is a higher order estimation technique, can reveal the presence of such phase couplings and provide a measure to quantify such couplings. A feed forward neural network has been trained and validated with higher order spectral features

Brachyuran Crabs of Cochin Backwaters- Diversity, Habitat Ecology and Systematics, with special emphasis to Genus Scylla

Among the decapod crustaceans, brachyuran crabs or the true crabs occupy a very significant position due to their ecological and economic value. Crabs support a sustenance fishery in India, even though their present status is not comparable to that of shrimps and lobsters. They are of great demand in the domestic market as well as in the foreign markets. In addition to this, brachyuran crabs are of great ecological importance. They form the conspicuous members of the mangrove ecosystems and play a significant role in detritus formation, nutrient recycling and dynamics of the ecosystem. Considering all these factors, crabs are often considered to be the keystone species of the mangrove ecosystem. Though several works have been undertaken on brachyuran crabs world –wide as well as within the country, reports on the brachyuran crabs of Kerala waters are very scanty. Most of the studies done on brachyuran fauna were from the east coast of India and a very few works from the west coast. Among the edible crabs, mud crabs belonging to genus Scylla forms the most important due to their large size and taste. They are being exported on a large scale to the foreign markets like Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Kerala is the biggest supplier of live mud crabs and Chennai is the major centre of live mud crab export. However, there exists considerable confusion regarding the identification of mud crabs because of the subtle morphological differences between the species.In this context, an extensive study was undertaken on the brachyuran fauna of Cochin Backwaters, Kerala, India, to have a basic knowledge on their diversity, habitat preference and systematics. The study provides an attempt to resolve the confusion pertaining in the species identification of mud crabs belonging to Genus Scylla. Diversity study revealed the occurrence of 23 species of brachyuran crabs belonging to 16 genera and 8 families in the study area Cochin Backwaters. Among the families, the highest number of species was recorded from Family Portunidae .Among the 23 crab species enlisted from the Cochin backwaters, 5 species are of commercial importance and contribute a major share to the crustacean fishery of the Cochin region. It was observed that, the Cochin backwaters are invaded by certain marine migrant species during the Post monsoon and Pre monsoon periods and they are found to disappear with the onset of monsoon. The study reports the occurrence of the ‘herring bow crab’ Varuna litterata in the Cochin backwaters for the first time. Ecological studies showed that the substratum characteristics influence the occurrence, distribution and abundance of crabs in the sampling stations rather than water quality parameters. The variables which affected the crab distribution the most were Salinity, moisture content in the sediment, organic carbon and the sediment texture. Besides the water and sediment quality parameters, the most important factor influencing the distribution of crabs is the presence of mangroves. The study also revealed that most of the crabs encountered from the study area preferred a muddy substratum, with high organic carbon content and high moisture content. In the present study, an identification key is presented for the brachyuran crabs occurring along the study area the Cochin backwaters and the associated mangrove patches, taking into account the morphological characters coupled with the structure of third maxillipeds, first pleopods of males and the shape of male abdomen. Morphological examination indicated the existence of a morphotype which is comparable with the morphological features of S. tranquebarica, the morphometric study and the molecular analyses confirmed the non existence of S. tranquebarica in the Cochin backwaters.

Network properties of folksonomies

Social resource sharing systems like YouTube and del.icio.us have acquired a large number of users within the last few years. They provide rich resources for data analysis, information retrieval, and knowledge discovery applications. A first step towards this end is to gain better insights into content and structure of these systems. In this paper, we will analyse the main network characteristics of two of the systems. We consider their underlying data structures – socalled folksonomies – as tri-partite hypergraphs, and adapt classical network measures like characteristic path length and clustering coefficient to them. Subsequently, we introduce a network of tag co-occurrence and investigate some of its statistical properties, focusing on correlations in node connectivity and pointing out features that reflect emergent semantics within the folksonomy. We show that simple statistical indicators unambiguously spot non-social behavior such as spam.

Network properties of folksonomies

Social resource sharing systems like YouTube and del.icio.us have acquired a large number of users within the last few years. They provide rich resources for data analysis, information retrieval, and knowledge discovery applications. A first step towards this end is to gain better insights into content and structure of these systems. In this paper, we will analyse the main network characteristics of two of these systems. We consider their underlying data structures – so-called folksonomies – as tri-partite hypergraphs, and adapt classical network measures like characteristic path length and clustering coefficient to them. Subsequently, we introduce a network of tag cooccurrence and investigate some of its statistical properties, focusing on correlations in node connectivity and pointing out features that reflect emergent semantics within the folksonomy. We show that simple statistical indicators unambiguously spot non-social behavior such as spam.

Semantic network analysis of ontologies

A key argument for modeling knowledge in ontologies is the easy re-use and re-engineering of the knowledge. However, beside consistency checking, current ontology engineering tools provide only basic functionalities for analyzing ontologies. Since ontologies can be considered as (labeled, directed) graphs, graph analysis techniques are a suitable answer for this need. Graph analysis has been performed by sociologists for over 60 years, and resulted in the vivid research area of Social Network Analysis (SNA). While social network structures in general currently receive high attention in the Semantic Web community, there are only very few SNA applications up to now, and virtually none for analyzing the structure of ontologies. We illustrate in this paper the benefits of applying SNA to ontologies and the Semantic Web, and discuss which research topics arise on the edge between the two areas. In particular, we discuss how different notions of centrality describe the core content and structure of an ontology. From the rather simple notion of degree centrality over betweenness centrality to the more complex eigenvector centrality based on Hermitian matrices, we illustrate the insights these measures provide on two ontologies, which are different in purpose, scope, and size.

Social network measures for "nosduocentered" networks, their predictive power on performance

Our purpose in this article is to define a network structure which is based on two egos instead of the egocentered (one ego) or the complete network (n egos). We describe the characteristics and properties for this kind of network which we call “nosduocentered network”, comparing it with complete and egocentered networks. The key point for this kind of network is that relations exist between the two main egos and all alters, but relations among others are not observed. After that, we use new social network measures adapted to the nosduocentered network, some of which are based on measures for complete networks such as degree, betweenness, closeness centrality or density, while some others are tailormade for nosduocentered networks. We specify three regression models to predict research performance of PhD students based on these social network measures for different networks such as advice, collaboration, emotional support and trust. Data used are from Slovenian PhD students and their s

Logistics Network Design with Differentiated Delivery Lead-Time: Benefits and Insights

Most logistics network design models assume exogenous customer demand that is independent of the service time or level. This paper examines the benefits of segmenting demand according to lead-time sensitivity of customers. To capture lead-time sensitivity in the network design model, we use a facility grouping method to ensure that the different demand classes are satisfied on time. In addition, we perform a series of computational experiments to develop a set of managerial insights for the network design decision making process.

Static Pricing for a Network Service Provider

This article studies the static pricing problem of a network service provider who has a fixed capacity and faces different types of customers (classes). Each type of customers can have its own capacity constraint but it is assumed that all classes have the same resource requirement. The provider must decide a static price for each class. The customer types are characterized by their arrival process, with a price-dependant arrival rate, and the random time they remain in the system. Many real-life situations could fit in this framework, for example an Internet provider or a call center, but originally this problem was thought for a company that sells phone-cards and needs to set the price-per-minute for each destination. Our goal is to characterize the optimal static prices in order to maximize the provider's revenue. We note that the model here presented, with some slight modifications and additional assumptions can be used in those cases when the objective is to maximize social welfare.

The Complexity of Safety Stock Placement in General-Network Supply Chains

We consider the optimization problem of safety stock placement in a supply chain, as formulated in [1]. We prove that this problem is NP-Hard for supply chains modeled as general acyclic networks. Thus, we do not expect to find a polynomial-time algorithm for safety stock placement for a general-network supply chain.

Habitat rural de Asturias.

Estudio del modo de estar distribuidos los lugares habitados en Asturias en el campo, los modos de vida, la agricultura tradicional, la parroquia, la propiedad de la tierra, la casería, la casa en las distintas zonas asturianas, los horreos y paneras, los molinos, los útiles de labranza, los productos más comunes como maíz, árboles frutales. los mercados como lugares de intercambio de bienes, etc. Finalmente se hace un recorrido sobre el panorama actual asturiano, la modernización de la maquinaria, la introducción de nuevos cultivos... y se sugieren algunas rutas tanto de lugares que conservan la estructura original como algunas más modernizadas.

Influence of the friends' network in drug use and violent behavior among young people in the nightlife recreational context

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Disseny i implementació d’una “Storage Area Network”

El següent projecte consisteix en analitzar com funciona un sistema SAN, per tal de veure com es pot obtenir un millor rendiment. L’objectiu principal es saber com es comportarà la nostra SAN muntada amb iSCSI a través de la xarxa, volem veure quines són les operacions, les dades i els resultats que comporta crear una RAID a través de discos no locals d’un ordinador i a través d’una xarxa LAN

La Participació d'estudiants i professors en una network d'infermeria

El 17th Annual Meeting of the Florence Network (FN) va tenir lloc del 21 al 25 d’abril de 2009 a The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THU) Academy of Health-School of Nursing, sota el lema: “Patient/client centred healthcare”. The Ducht perspective with an international touch”, i es va centrar en l’actual situació dels drets dels pacients a Holanda aplicat en diferents camps de les cures infermeres. L’Escola d’Infermeria de la Universitat de Girona hi va participar amb l’assistència de dues professores i quatre estudiants. E nombre total d’estudiants que varen assistir a la FN es de 47. La procedència dels mateixos en total de 9 països diferents. De tots ells assistien per primer cop 18 persones 4 ho feien per segona vegada i 1 per tercera . Els objectius del treball que es presenta son els següents: 1, Conèixer l’opinió dels estudiants respecte a la seva participació a la Florence Network. 2, Saber quin perfil tenen els universitaris que hi assisteixen 3, Detectar els punts forts i els punts febles que destaquen els estudiants després de participar a la Florence Network