Cooperative fishing interactions between Aboriginal Australians and dolphins in eastern Australia

Published eyewitness accounts and stories form Aboriginal Australians are used to provide an overview of the geographical extent and characteristics of cooperative fishing between Aboriginal Australians and dolphins in eastern Australia. These sources indicate that cooperative fishing was geographically widespread in eastern Australia, involved both bottlenose dolphins and orcas, and had a significance (emotional and Spiritual) to Aboriginal people beyond the acquisition of food. These fishing interactions represent both context and precedent for the economic and emotional-objectives of contemporary human-dolphin interactions such as dolphin provisioning. (C) 2002 International Society for Anthrozoology.

Refinements in stress echocardiographic techniques improve inter-institutional agreement in interpretation of dobutamine stress echocardiograms

Aims To determine the degree of inter-institutional agreement in the assessment of dobutamine stress echocardiograms using modern stress echo cardiographic technology in combination with standardized data acquisition and assessment criteria. Method and Results Among six experienced institutions, 150 dobutamine stress echocardiograms (dobutamine up to 40 mug.kg(-1) min(-1) and atropine up to I mg) were performed on patients with suspected coronary artery disease using fundamental and harmonic imaging following a consistent digital acquisition protocol. Each dobutamine stress echocardiogram was assessed at every institution regarding endocardial visibility and left ventricular wall motion without knowledge of any other data using standardized reading criteria. No patients were excluded due to poor image quality or inadequate stress level. Coronary angiography was performed within 4 weeks. Coronary angiography demonstrated significant coronary artery disease (less than or equal to50% diameter stenosis) in 87 patients. Using harmonic imaging an average of 5.2+/-0.9 institutions agreed on dobutamine stress echocardiogram results as being normal or abnormal (mean kappa 0.55; 95% CI 0.50-0.60). Agreement was higher in patients with no (equal assessment of dobutamine stress echocardiogram results by 5.5 +/- 0.8 institutions) or three-vessel coronary artery disease (5.4 +/- 0.8 institutions) and lower in one- or two- vessel disease (5.0 +/- 0.9 and 5.2 +/- 1.0 institutions, respectively-, P=0.041). Disagreement on test results was greater in only minor wall motion abnormalities. Agreement on dobutamine stress echocardiogram results was lower using fundamental imaging (mean kappa 0.49; 95% CI 0.44-0.54; P

The long-term effects of cooperative learning on children's behaviour and interactions

This study investigates the long-term effects of training in small-group and interpersonal behaviours on children's behaviours and interactions as they worked in small groups two years after they were initially trained. Forty-eight third grade children, who had been trained two years previously in cooperative group behaviours, were assigned to the Trained condition and 44 third grade children who had not previously been trained were assigned to the Untrained condition. The children in the trained and untrained groups were reconstituted from the pool of students who had participated previously in either trained or untrained group activities. The results showed that there was a long-term training effect with the children in the Trained groups demonstrating more cooperative behaviour and providing more explanations in response to requests for help than their untrained peers.

The residual effects of cooperative-learning experiences: A two-year follow-up

The author investigated how training in small-group and interpersonal behaviors affected children's behavior and interactions as they worked in small groups 2 years later. The authors assigned 52 fifth graders, who had been trained 2 years previously in cooperative group behaviors, to the trained condition and 36 fifth graders, who had not previously been trained, to the untrained condition. Both were reconstituted from the pool of students who had participated previously in group activities. The results showed a residual training effect, with the children in the trained groups being more cooperative and helpful than their untrained peers.

Estimation of total body water from bioelectrical impedance analysis in patients with pancreatic cancer - agreement between three methods of prediction

Introduction Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is a useful field measure to estimate total body water (TBW). No prediction formulae have been developed or validated against a reference method in patients with pancreatic cancer. The aim of this study was to assess the agreement between three prediction equations for the estimation of TBW in cachectic patients with pancreatic cancer. Methods Resistance was measured at frequencies of 50 and 200 kHz in 18 outpatients (10 males and eight females, age 70.2 +/- 11.8 years) with pancreatic cancer from two tertiary Australian hospitals. Three published prediction formulae were used to calculate TBW - TBWs developed in surgical patients, TBWca-uw and TBWca-nw developed in underweight and normal weight patients with end-stage cancer. Results There was no significant difference in the TBW estimated by the three prediction equations - TBWs 32.9 +/- 8.3 L, TBWca-nw 36.3 +/- 7.4 L, TBWca-uw 34.6 +/- 7.6 L. At a population level, there is agreement between prediction of TBW in patients with pancreatic cancer estimated from the three equations. The best combination of low bias and narrow limits of agreement was observed when TBW was estimated from the equation developed in the underweight cancer patients relative to the normal weight cancer patients. When no established BIA prediction equation exists, practitioners should utilize an equation developed in a population with similar critical characteristics such as diagnosis, weight loss, body mass index and/or age. Conclusions Further research is required to determine the accuracy of the BIA prediction technique against a reference method in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Further evidence for the agreement between patients with stroke and their proxies on the Frenchay Activities Index

Objective: To determine item, subscale and total score agreement on the Frenchay Activities Index (FAI) between stroke patients and proxies six months after discharge from rehabilitation. Design: Prospective study design. Setting/subjects: Fifty patient-proxy pairs, interviewed separately, in the patient's residence. Main outcome measures: Modified FAI using 13 items. Individual FAI items, subscales and total score agreement as measured by weighted kappa and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). Results: Excellent agreement was found for the total FAI (ICC 0.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78-0.93), and domestic (ICC 0.85, 95% CI 0.73-0.91) and outdoor (ICC 0.87, 95% CI 0.78-0.95) subscales, with moderate agreement found for the work/leisure subscale (ICC 0.63, 95% CI 0.34-0.78). For the individual FAI items, good, moderate, fair and poor agreement was found for five, three, four and one item, respectively. The best agreement was for objective items of preparing meals, washing-up, washing clothes, shopping and driving. The poorest agreement was for participation in hobbies, social outings and heavy housework. Scoring biases associated with patient or proxy demographic characteristics were found. Female proxies, and those who were spouses, scored patients lower on domestic activities; male patients, and those who were younger, scored themselves higher on outdoor activities and higher patient FIM scores were positively correlated with higher FAI scores. Conclusions: While total and subscale agreement on the FAI was high, individual item agreement varied. Proxy scores should be used with caution due to bias.

Brazil and the institutionalization of South America: from hemispheric estrangement to cooperative hegemony

This article argues that Brazil went from a posture of estrangement in relation to the hemispheric project represented by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) to a strategy of cooperative hegemony aimed at institutionalizing the South American space and increasing the costs of the FTAA for the United States. Although Brazil was initially isolated, US lack of leadership combined with events at the subregional level ended up turning the tide in the direction of Brazilian interests. These factors help to understand the current institutional configuration of South America.

Automation & control remote laboratory: evaluating a cooperative methodology

This paper presents a study carried out in order to evaluate the students' perception in the development and use of remote Control and Automation education kits developed by two Universities. Three projects, based on real world environments, were implemented, being local and remotely operated. Students implemented the kits using the theoretical and practical knowledge, being the teachers a catalyst in the learning process. When kits were operational, end-user students got acquainted to the kits in the course curricula units. It is the author's believe that successful results were achieved not only in the learning progress on the Automation and Control fields (hard skills) but also on the development of the students soft skills, leading to encouraging and rewarding goals, motivating their future decisions and promoting synergies in their work. The design of learning experimental kits by students, under teacher supervision, for future use in course curricula by enduser students is an advantageous and rewarding experience.

Chaos and crises in a model for cooperative hunting: A symbolic dynamics approach

In this work we investigate the population dynamics of cooperative hunting extending the McCann and Yodzis model for a three-species food chain system with a predator, a prey, and a resource species. The new model considers that a given fraction sigma of predators cooperates in prey's hunting, while the rest of the population 1-sigma hunts without cooperation. We use the theory of symbolic dynamics to study the topological entropy and the parameter space ordering of the kneading sequences associated with one-dimensional maps that reproduce significant aspects of the dynamics of the species under several degrees of cooperative hunting. Our model also allows us to investigate the so-called deterministic extinction via chaotic crisis and transient chaos in the framework of cooperative hunting. The symbolic sequences allow us to identify a critical boundary in the parameter spaces (K, C-0) and (K, sigma) which separates two scenarios: (i) all-species coexistence and (ii) predator's extinction via chaotic crisis. We show that the crisis value of the carrying capacity K-c decreases at increasing sigma, indicating that predator's populations with high degree of cooperative hunting are more sensitive to the chaotic crises. We also show that the control method of Dhamala and Lai [Phys. Rev. E 59, 1646 (1999)] can sustain the chaotic behavior after the crisis for systems with cooperative hunting. We finally analyze and quantify the inner structure of the target regions obtained with this control method for wider parameter values beyond the crisis, showing a power law dependence of the extinction transients on such critical parameters.

Cooperative scheduling system with emergent swarm based behavior

This paper presents a Swarm based Cooperation Mechanism for scheduling optimization. We intend to conceptualize real manufacturing systems as interacting autonomous entities in order to support decision making in agile manufacturing environments. Agents coordinate their actions automatically without human supervision considering a common objective – global scheduling solution taking advantages from collective behavior of species through implicit and explicit cooperation. The performance of the cooperation mechanism will be evaluated consider implicit cooperation at first stage through ACS, PSO and ABC algorithms and explicit through cooperation mechanism application.