Effects of artificial shade on attack by the mahogany shoot borer, Hypsipyla robusta (Moore)

Swietenia macrophylla King (Meliaceae: Swietenioideae) provides one of the premier timbers of the world. The mahogany shoot borer Hypsipyla robusta Moore (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) is an economically important pest of S. macrophylla throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific. No viable method of controlling this pest is known. Previous observations have suggested that the presence of overhead shade may reduce attack by H. robusta, but this has not been investigated experimentally. This research was therefore designed to assess the influence of light availability on shoot-borer attack on S. macrophylla, by establishing seedlings under three different artificial shade regimes, then using these seedlings to test oviposition preference of adult moths, neonate larval survival and growth and development of shoot borer larvae. Oviposition preference of shoot borer moths was tested on leaves from seedlings grown under artificial shade for 63 weeks. A significant difference in choice was recorded between treatments, with 27.4 ± 1.5 eggs laid under high shade and 87.1 ± 1.8 under low shade. Neonate larval survival on early flushing leaflets of S. macrophylla did not differ significantly between shade treatments. Larval growth rate, estimated by measuring daily frass width, was significantly higher for those larvae fed on seedlings from the high and medium shade treatments (0.1 mm/day), than the low shade treatment (0.06 mm/day). In laboratory-reared larvae, the total mass of frass produced was significantly higher in the high shade treatment (0.4 g) than under the low shade treatment (0.2 g). Longer tunnel lengths were bored by larvae in plants grown under high shade (12.0 ± 2.4 cm) than under low shade (7.07 ± 1.9 cm). However, pupal mass under low shade was 48% higher than that under the high shade treatment, suggesting that plants grown under high shade were of lower nutritional quality for shoot borer larvae. These results indicate that shading of mahogany seedlings may reduce the incidence of shoot borer attack, by influencing both oviposition and larval development. The establishment of mahogany under suitable shade regimes may therefore provide a basis for controlling shoot borer attack using silvicultural approaches.

Book review : "Artificial Hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship by Claire Bishop"

In the years since Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics (1998) was published, a plethora of books (Shannon Jackson’s Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics [2011], Nato Thompson’s Living as Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011 [2011], Grant Kester’s Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art [2004], Pablo Helguera’s Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Material and Techniques Handbook [2011]), conferences and articles have surfaced creating a rich and textured discourse that has responded to, critiqued and reconfigured the proposed social utopias of Bourriaud’s aesthetics. As a touchstone for this emerging discourse, Relational Aesthetics outlines in a contemporary context the plethora of social and process-based art forms that took as their medium the ‘social’. It is, however, Clare Bishop’s book Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship (Verso), that offers a deeper art historical and theoretically considered rendering of this growing and complicated form of art, and forms a central body of work in this broad constellation of writings about participatory art, or social practice art/socially engaged art (SEA), as it is now commonly known...

Sexual selection in true fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) : transcriptome and experimental evidences for phytochemicals increasing male competitive ability

In male tephritid fruit flies of the genus Bactrocera, feeding on secondary plant compounds (sensu lato male lures = methyl eugenol, raspberry ketone and zingerone) increases male mating success. Ingested male lures alter the male pheromonal blend, normally making it more attractive to females and this is considered the primary mechanism for the enhanced mating success. However, the male lures raspberry ketone and zingerone are known, across a diverse range of other organisms, to be involved in increasing energy metabolism. If this also occurs in Bactrocera, then this may represent an additional benefit to males as courtship is metabolically expensive and lure feeding may increase a fly's short-term energy. We tested this hypothesis by performing comparative RNA-seq analysis between zingerone-fed and unfed males of Bactrocera tryoni. We also carried out behavioural assays with zingerone- and cuelure-fed males to test whether they became more active. RNA-seq analysis revealed, in zingerone-fed flies, up-regulation of 3183 genes with homologues transcripts to those known to regulate intermale aggression, pheromone synthesis, mating and accessory gland proteins, along with significant enrichment of several energy metabolic pathways and gene ontology terms. Behavioural assays show significant increases in locomotor activity, weight reduction and successful mating after mounting; all direct/indirect measures of increased activity. These results suggest that feeding on lures leads to complex physiological changes, which result in more competitive males. These results do not negate the pheromone effect, but do strongly suggest that the phytochemical-induced sexual selection is governed by both female preference and male competitive mechanisms.

Human vs. machine : identification of bat species from their echolocation calls by humans and by artificial neural networks

Automated remote ultrasound detectors allow large amounts of data on bat presence and activity to be collected. Processing of such data involves identifying bat species from their echolocation calls. Automated species identification has the potential to provide more consistent, predictable, and potentially higher levels of accuracy than identification by humans. In contrast, identification by humans permits flexibility and intelligence in identification, as well as the incorporation of features and patterns that may be difficult to quantify. We compared humans with artificial neural networks (ANNs) in their ability to classify short recordings of bat echolocation calls of variable signal to noise ratios; these sequences are typical of those obtained from remote automated recording systems that are often used in large-scale ecological studies. We presented 45 recordings (1–4 calls) produced by known species of bats to ANNs and to 26 human participants with 1 month to 23 years of experience in acoustic identification of bats. Humans correctly classified 86% of recordings to genus and 56% to species; ANNs correctly identified 92% and 62%, respectively. There was no significant difference between the performance of ANNs and that of humans, but ANNs performed better than about 75% of humans. There was little relationship between the experience of the human participants and their classification rate. However, humans with <1 year of experience performed worse than others. Currently, identification of bat echolocation calls by humans is suitable for ecological research, after careful consideration of biases. However, improvements to ANNs and the data that they are trained on may in future increase their performance to beyond those demonstrated by humans.

Identification of New Zealand bats in flight from analysis of echolocation calls by artificial neural networks.

Time-expanded and heterodyned echolocation calls of the New Zealand long-tailed Chalinolobus tuberculatus and lesser short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata were recorded and digitally analysed. Temporal and spectral parameters were measured from time-expanded calls and power spectra generated for both time-expanded and heterodyned calls. Artificial neural networks were trained to classify the calls of both species using temporal and spectral parameters and power spectra as input data. Networks were then tested using data not previously seen. Calls could be unambiguously identified using parameters and power spectra from time-expanded calls. A neural network, trained and tested using power spectra of calls from both species recorded using a heterodyne detector set to 40 kHz (the frequency with the most energy of the fundamental of C. tuberculatus call), could identify 99% and 84% of calls of C. tuberculatus and M. tuberculata, respectively. A second network, trained and tested using power spectra of calls from both species recorded using a heterodyne detector set to 27 kHz (the frequency with the most energy of the fundamental of M. tuberculata call), could identify 34% and 100% of calls of C. tuberculatus and M. tuberculata, respectively. This study represents the first use of neural networks for the identification of bats from their echolocation calls. It is also the first study to use power spectra of time-expanded and heterodyned calls for identification of chiropteran species. The ability of neural networks to identify bats from their echolocation calls is discussed, as is the ecology of both species in relation to the design of their echolocation calls.

Acoustic identification of 12 species of echolocating bat by discriminant function analysis and artificial neural networks

We recorded echolocation calls from 14 sympatric species of bat in Britain. Once digitised, one temporal and four spectral features were measured from each call. The frequency-time course of each call was approximated by fitting eight mathematical functions, and the goodness of fit, represented by the mean-squared error, was calculated. Measurements were taken using an automated process that extracted a single call from background noise and measured all variables without intervention. Two species of Rhinolophus were easily identified from call duration and spectral measurements. For the remaining 12 species, discriminant function analysis and multilayer back-propagation perceptrons were used to classify calls to species level. Analyses were carried out with and without the inclusion of curve-fitting data to evaluate its usefulness in distinguishing among species. Discriminant function analysis achieved an overall correct classification rate of 79% with curve-fitting data included, while an artificial neural network achieved 87%. The removal of curve-fitting data improved the performance of the discriminant function analysis by 2 %, while the performance of a perceptron decreased by 2 %. However, an increase in correct identification rates when curve-fitting information was included was not found for all species. The use of a hierarchical classification system, whereby calls were first classified to genus level and then to species level, had little effect on correct classification rates by discriminant function analysis but did improve rates achieved by perceptrons. This is the first published study to use artificial neural networks to classify the echolocation calls of bats to species level. Our findings are discussed in terms of recent advances in recording and analysis technologies, and are related to factors causing convergence and divergence of echolocation call design in bats.

Acoustic identification of twelve species of echolocating bat by discriminant function analysis and artificial neural networks

We recorded echolocation calls from 14 sympatric species of bat in Britain. Once digitised, one temporal and four spectral features were measured from each call. The frequency-time course of each call was approximated by fitting eight mathematical functions, and the goodness of fit, represented by the mean-squared error, was calculated. Measurements were taken using an automated process that extracted a single call from background noise and measured all variables without intervention. Two species of Rhinolophus were easily identified from call duration and spectral measurements. For the remaining 12 species, discriminant function analysis and multilayer back-propagation perceptrons were used to classify calls to species level. Analyses were carried out with and without the inclusion of curve-fitting data to evaluate its usefulness in distinguishing among species. Discriminant function analysis achieved an overall correct classification rate of 79% with curve-fitting data included, while an artificial neural network achieved 87%. The removal of curve-fitting data improved the performance of the discriminant function analysis by 2 %, while the performance of a perceptron decreased by 2 %. However, an increase in correct identification rates when curve-fitting information was included was not found for all species. The use of a hierarchical classification system, whereby calls were first classified to genus level and then to species level, had little effect on correct classification rates by discriminant function analysis but did improve rates achieved by perceptrons. This is the first published study to use artificial neural networks to classify the echolocation calls of bats to species level. Our findings are discussed in terms of recent advances in recording and analysis technologies, and are related to factors causing convergence and divergence of echolocation call design in bats.

Prediction of GMA welding characteristic parameter by artificial neural network system

Nowadays, demand for automated Gas metal arc welding (GMAW) is growing and consequently need for intelligent systems is increased to ensure the accuracy of the procedure. To date, welding pool geometry has been the most used factor in quality assessment of intelligent welding systems. But, it has recently been found that Mahalanobis Distance (MD) not only can be used for this purpose but also is more efficient. In the present paper, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has been used for prediction of MD parameter. However, advantages and disadvantages of other methods have been discussed. The Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm was found to be the most effective algorithm for GMAW process. It is known that the number of neurons plays an important role in optimal network design. In this work, using trial and error method, it has been found that 30 is the optimal number of neurons. The model has been investigated with different number of layers in Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) architecture and has been shown that for the aim of this work the optimal result is obtained when using MLP with one layer. Robustness of the system has been evaluated by adding noise into the input data and studying the effect of the noise in prediction capability of the network. The experiments for this study were conducted in an automated GMAW setup that was integrated with data acquisition system and prepared in a laboratory for welding of steel plate with 12 mm in thickness. The accuracy of the network was evaluated by Root Mean Squared (RMS) error between the measured and the estimated values. The low error value (about 0.008) reflects the good accuracy of the model. Also the comparison of the predicted results by ANN and the test data set showed very good agreement that reveals the predictive power of the model. Therefore, the ANN model offered in here for GMA welding process can be used effectively for prediction goals.

Autonomous helicopter hover using an artificial neural network

Details the developments to date of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) based on a standard size 60 model helicopter. The design goal is to have the helicopter achieve stable hover with the aid of an INS and stereo vision. The focus of the paper is on the development of an artificial neural network (ANN) that makes use of only the INS data to generate hover commands, which are used to directly manipulate the flight servos. Current results show that networks incorporating some form of recurrency (state history) offer little advantage over those without. At this stage, the ANN has partially maintained periods of hover even with misaligned sensors.

Implementation of Art1 and Art2 Artificial Neural Networks on Ring and Mesh Architectures

The Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are being used to solve a variety of problems in pattern recognition, robotic control, VLSI CAD and other areas. In most of these applications, a speedy response from the ANNs is imperative. However, ANNs comprise a large number of artificial neurons, and a massive interconnection network among them. Hence, implementation of these ANNs involves execution of computer-intensive operations. The usage of multiprocessor systems therefore becomes necessary. In this article, we have presented the implementation of ART1 and ART2 ANNs on ring and mesh architectures. The overall system design and implementation aspects are presented. The performance of the algorithm on ring, 2-dimensional mesh and n-dimensional mesh topologies is presented. The parallel algorithm presented for implementation of ART1 is not specific to any particular architecture. The parallel algorithm for ARTE is more suitable for a ring architecture.

Artificial Neural Network Based Automatic Emergency Landing Site Selection for UAVs and Highly Automated Aircraft

In this report an artificial neural network (ANN) based automated emergency landing site selection system for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and general aviation (GA) is described. The system aims increase safety of UAV operation by emulating pilot decision making in emergency landing scenarios using an ANN to select a safe landing site from available candidates. The strength of an ANN to model complex input relationships makes it a perfect system to handle the multicriteria decision making (MCDM) process of emergency landing site selection. The ANN operates by identifying the more favorable of two landing sites when provided with an input vector derived from both landing site's parameters, the aircraft's current state and wind measurements. The system consists of a feed forward ANN, a pre-processor class which produces ANN input vectors and a class in charge of creating a ranking of landing site candidates using the ANN. The system was successfully implemented in C++ using the FANN C++ library and ROS. Results obtained from ANN training and simulations using randomly generated landing sites by a site detection simulator data verify the feasibility of an ANN based automated emergency landing site selection system.

Questions to Artificial Nature: A Philosophical Study of Interdisciplinary Models and their Functions in Scientific Practice

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary analysis of how models and simulations function in the production of scientific knowledge. The work is informed by three scholarly traditions: studies on models and simulations in philosophy of science, so-called micro-sociological laboratory studies within science and technology studies, and cultural-historical activity theory. Methodologically, I adopt a naturalist epistemology and combine philosophical analysis with a qualitative, empirical case study of infectious-disease modelling. This study has a dual perspective throughout the analysis: it specifies the modelling practices and examines the models as objects of research. The research questions addressed in this study are: 1) How are models constructed and what functions do they have in the production of scientific knowledge? 2) What is interdisciplinarity in model construction? 3) How do models become a general research tool and why is this process problematic? The core argument is that the mediating models as investigative instruments (cf. Morgan and Morrison 1999) take questions as a starting point, and hence their construction is intentionally guided. This argument applies the interrogative model of inquiry (e.g., Sintonen 2005; Hintikka 1981), which conceives of all knowledge acquisition as process of seeking answers to questions. The first question addresses simulation models as Artificial Nature, which is manipulated in order to answer questions that initiated the model building. This account develops further the "epistemology of simulation" (cf. Winsberg 2003) by showing the interrelatedness of researchers and their objects in the process of modelling. The second question clarifies why interdisciplinary research collaboration is demanding and difficult to maintain. The nature of the impediments to disciplinary interaction are examined by introducing the idea of object-oriented interdisciplinarity, which provides an analytical framework to study the changes in the degree of interdisciplinarity, the tools and research practices developed to support the collaboration, and the mode of collaboration in relation to the historically mutable object of research. As my interest is in the models as interdisciplinary objects, the third research problem seeks to answer my question of how we might characterise these objects, what is typical for them, and what kind of changes happen in the process of modelling. Here I examine the tension between specified, question-oriented models and more general models, and suggest that the specified models form a group of their own. I call these Tailor-made models, in opposition to the process of building a simulation platform that aims at generalisability and utility for health-policy. This tension also underlines the challenge of applying research results (or methods and tools) to discuss and solve problems in decision-making processes.

Estimation of light interception in research environments: A joint approach using directional light sensors and 3D virtual plants applied to sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and Arabidopsis thaliana in natural and artificial conditions

Light interception is a major factor influencing plant development and biomass production. Several methods have been proposed to determine this variable, but its calculation remains difficult in artificial environments with heterogeneous light. We propose a method that uses 3D virtual plant modelling and directional light characterisation to estimate light interception in highly heterogeneous light environments such as growth chambers and glasshouses. Intercepted light was estimated by coupling an architectural model and a light model for different genotypes of the rosette species Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh and a sunflower crop. The model was applied to plants of contrasting architectures, cultivated in isolation or in canopy, in natural or artificial environments, and under contrasting light conditions. The model gave satisfactory results when compared with observed data and enabled calculation of light interception in situations where direct measurements or classical methods were inefficient, such as young crops, isolated plants or artificial conditions. Furthermore, the model revealed that A. thaliana increased its light interception efficiency when shaded. To conclude, the method can be used to calculate intercepted light at organ, plant and plot levels, in natural and artificial environments, and should be useful in the investigation of genotype-environment interactions for plant architecture and light interception efficiency. This paper originates from a presentation at the 5th International Workshop on Functional–Structural Plant Models, Napier, New Zealand, November 2007.