0000000000374726
AUTHOR
Francesco Bonadonna
First GPS-tracking of Cory’s shearwater in the Mediterranean Sea.
Abstract The behaviour and ecology of seabirds such as albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters have been the subject of numerous studies, often employing the most recent technologies to track birds during their foraging trips. Until now, however, large oceanic species have been preferred for tracking studies because of the dimensions and weight of the devices available. New light-weight GPS (Global Positioning System) loggers (< 9 g) were used to track foraging trips of a medium-sized species, the Cory's shearwater, for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea. The tracks obtained showed that Mediterranean Cory's shearwaters alternatively used one of two different fishing areas. Various explana…
HyperShell: An expert system shell in a hypermedia environment—application in medical audiology
HyperShell is an expert system shell developed in a hypermedia environment. Several artificial intelligence techniques such as frames and semantic networks are used in an original interpretation to enhance the interaction between the user and the program. The typical navigation tools of hypermedia such as clickable buttons and text search are extended to the semantic structure of HyperShell, creating a set of new tools. Examples from a medical expert system (Audex HM) developed in HyperShell are described.
Olfactory foraging in temperate waters: sensitivity to dimethylsulphide of shearwaters in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
AbstractMany procellariiforms use olfactory cues to locate food patches over the seemingly featureless ocean surface. In particular, some of them are able to detect and are attracted by dimethylsulfide (DMS), a volatile compound naturally occurring over worldwide oceans in correspondence with productive feeding areas. However, current knowledge is restricted to sub-Antarctic species, and to only one study realized under natural conditions at sea. Here, for the first time, we investigated the response to DMS in parallel in two different environments in temperate waters, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, employing Cory's (Calonectris borealis) and Scopoli's shearwaters (Calonectri…