Search results for "AKI"
showing 10 items of 5527 documents
Inbreeding reveals mode of past selection on male reproductive characters in Drosophila melanogaster
2013
Directional dominance is a prerequisite of inbreeding depression. Directionality arises when selection drives alleles that increase fitness to fixation and eliminates dominant deleterious alleles, while deleterious recessives are hidden from it and maintained at low frequencies. Traits under directional selection (i.e., fitness traits) are expected to show directional dominance and therefore an increased susceptibility to inbreeding depression. In contrast, traits under stabilizing selection or weakly linked to fitness are predicted to exhibit little-to-no inbreeding depression. Here, we quantify the extent of inbreeding depression in a range of male reproductive characters and then infer t…
A Knowledge-Based System as a Sustainable Software Application for the Supervision and Intelligent Control of an Alcoholic Fermentation Process
2020
One goal of specialists in food processing is to increase production efficiency in accordance with sustainability by optimising the consumption of raw food materials, water, and energy. One way to achieve this purpose is to develop new methods for process monitoring and control. In the winemaking industry, there is a lack of procedures regarding the common work based on knowledge acquisition and intelligent control. In the present article, we developed and tested a knowledge-based system for the alcoholic fermentation process of white winemaking while considering the main phases: the latent phase, exponential growth phase, and decay phase. The automatic control of the white wine&rsquo
Decision support systems (DSS) for wastewater treatment plants - A review of the state of the art.
2019
The use of decision support systems (DSS) allows integrating all the issues related with sustainable development in view of providing a useful support to solve multi-scenario problems. In this work an extensive review on the DSSs applied to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is presented. The main aim of the work is to provide an updated compendium on DSSs in view of supporting researchers and engineers on the selection of the most suitable method to address their management/operation/design problems. Results showed that DSSs were mostly used as a comprehensive tool that is capable of integrating several data and a multi-criteria perspective in order to provide more reliable results. Only …
Simple learning rules to cope with changing environments
2008
10 pages; International audience; We consider an agent that must choose repeatedly among several actions. Each action has a certain probability of giving the agent an energy reward, and costs may be associated with switching between actions. The agent does not know which action has the highest reward probability, and the probabilities change randomly over time. We study two learning rules that have been widely used to model decision-making processes in animals-one deterministic and the other stochastic. In particular, we examine the influence of the rules' 'learning rate' on the agent's energy gain. We compare the performance of each rule with the best performance attainable when the agent …
Symmetry breaking in mass-recruiting ants: extent of foraging biases depends on resource quality.
2016
Abstract The communication involved in the foraging behaviour of social insects is integral to their success. Many ant species use trail pheromones to make decisions about where to forage. The strong positive feedback caused by the trail pheromone is thought to create a decision between two or more options. When the two options are of identical quality, this is known as symmetry breaking, and is important because it helps colonies to monopolise food sources in a competitive environment. Symmetry breaking is thought to increase with the quantity of pheromone deposited by ants, but empirical studies exploring the factors affecting symmetry breaking are limited. Here, we tested if (i) greater …
Guidelines for risk management in forest planning – what is risk and when is risk management useful?
2018
Managing forest resources occurs under various sources of uncertainty. Depending on the management problem, this uncertainty may have a substantial impact on the quality of the solution. As our knowledge on the sources and magnitude of uncertainty improves, integrating this knowledge into the development of management plans becomes increasingly useful, as additional information can improve the decision-making process. This adjustment requires a fundamental shift in how planning problems are viewed: instead of interpreting risk management as a technique needed only for addressing problems with natural hazards, risk management should be an integral part of most planning problems. Managing ri…
Use of Kluyveromyces marxianus to Increase Free Monoterpenes and Aliphatic Esters in White Wines
2021
An increasing interest in novel wine productions is focused on non-Saccharomyces yeasts due to their potential in improving sensory profiles. Although Kluyveromyces marxianus has been originally isolated from grapes and its enzymatic activities are used in oenology, rarely it has been used as co-starter. The K. marxianus Km L2009 strain has been characterized here and selected as a co-starter both at laboratory- and winery-scale fermentation. The Km L2009 strain showed growth of up to 40 (mg/L) of sulfites and 6% (v/v) of ethanol. Gas chromatographic analysis demonstrates that wines produced by mixed fermentation contain remarkably higher quantities of free monoterpenes and aliphatic esters…
LTSER platforms as a place-based transdisciplinary research infrastructure: learning landscape approach through evaluation
2019
Context: Place-based transdisciplinary research involves multiple academic disciplines and non-academic actors. Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platform is one concept with ~ 80 initiatives globally. Objectives: As an exercise in learning through evaluation we audited (1) the siting, construction and maintenance of individual LTSER platforms, and (2) them as a distributed infrastructure for place-based transdisciplinary research with focus on the European continent. Methods: First, we defined a normative model for ideal performance at both platform and network levels. Second, four surveys were sent out to the 67 self-reported LTSER platforms officially listed at the end of 2016.…
Why do house-hunting ants recruit in both directions?
2007
8 pages; International audience; To perform tasks, organisms often use multiple procedures. Explaining the breadth of such behavioural repertoires is not always straightforward. During house hunting, colonies of Temnothorax albipennis ants use a range of behaviours to organise their emigrations. In particular, the ants use tandem running to recruit na? ants to potential nest sites. Initially, they use forward tandem runs (FTRs) in which one leader takes a single follower along the route from the old nest to the new one. Later, they use reverse tandem runs (RTRs) in the opposite direction. Tandem runs are used to teach active ants the route between the nests, so that they can be involved qui…
Recent increase of ulcerative lesions caused by Anisakis spp. in cetaceans from the north-east Atlantic
2020
Abstract Species of Anisakis typically infect the stomach of cetaceans worldwide, often causing ulcerative lesions that may compromise the host's health. These nematodes also cause anisakiasis or allergic reactions in humans. To assess the risks of this emerging zoonosis, data on long-term changes in Anisakis infections in cetaceans are necessary. Here, we compare the prevalence and severity of ulcerative lesions caused by Anisakis spp. in five cetacean species stranded along the north-west Spanish coast in 2017–2018 with published data from 1991–1996. Open ulcers were found in 32/43 short-beaked common dolphins, Delphinus delphis; 3/5 striped dolphins, Stenella coeruleoalba; 1/7 bottlenose…