Search results for "COU"
showing 10 items of 14566 documents
From habitat use to social behavior: natural history of a voiceless poison frog, Dendrobates tinctorius
2019
AbstractDescriptive studies of natural history have always been a source of knowledge on which experimental work and scientific progress rely. Poison frogs are a well-studied group of small Neotropical frogs with diverse parental behaviors, distinct calls, and bright colors that warn predators about their toxicity; and a showcase of advances in fundamental biology through natural history observations. The dyeing poison frog, Dendrobates tinctorius, is emblematic of the Guianas region, widespread in the pet-trade, and increasingly popular in research. This species shows several unusual behaviors, such as the lack of advertisement calls and the aggregation around tree-fall gaps, which remain …
Press and bullfighting. The strength of the emotions
2018
Las corridas de toros fueron, tanto por el número asistentes como por la cantidad de festejos que se llevaron a cabo, el primer gran espectáculo de masas que se conoció en España. Enraizado en la fiesta popular, el espectáculo taurino será reconvertido en fiesta nacional a fines del siglo XIX, con el concurso de una prensa que crece en la misma medida que lo hace el sensacionalismo, y el interés de un Estado que utilizará las emociones de los toros para fomentar el amor a la patria. En este trabajo se aborda la dimensión cultural del festejo, su utilización política y el papel fundamental que juega la prensa. The bullfights were the first big spectacle of masses that was known in Spain, so …
How to reach optimal estimates of confidence intervals in microscopic counting of phytoplankton?
2021
Abstract Present practices in the microscopic counting of phytoplankton to estimate the reliability of results rely on the assumption of a random distribution of taxa in sample preparations. In contrast to that and in agreement with the literature, we show that aggregated distribution is common and can lead to over-optimistic confidence intervals, if estimated according to the shortcut procedure of Lund et al. based on the number of counted cells. We found a good linear correlation between the distribution independent confidence intervals for medians and those for parametric statistics so that 95% confidence intervals can be approximated by using a correction factor of 1.4. Instead, the rec…
Liquid Crystal Phases in Suspensions of Charged Plate-Like Particles
2012
International audience; Anisotropic interactions in colloidal suspensions have recently emerged as a route for the design of new soft materials. Nonisotropic particles can form nematic, smectic, hexatic, and columnar liquid crystals. Although the formation of these phases is well rationalized when excluded volume is solely at play, the role of electrostatic interactions still remains unclear and even less so when particles present a charge heterogeneity, for example, clays. Here, we use Monte Carlo simulations of concentrated suspensions of charged disk-like particles to reveal the role of Coulomb interactions and charge anisotropy underlying liquid crystal formation and structures. We obse…
Vibronic Model for Intercommunication of Localized Spins via Itinerant Electron
2019
In this article, we propose a vibronic pseudo Jahn–Teller model for partially delocalized mixed-valence molecules aimed to describe the magnetic coupling between the localized spins mediated by the delocalized electron. The simplest partially delocalized system that retains the main studied features is assumed to consist of a one-electron mixed-valence dimer, which is connected to the two terminal magnetic ions. The model involves the following key interactions: electron transfer in the spin-delocalized subsystem of a mixed-valence molecule, which is mimicked by a dimeric unit, coupling of the itinerant electrons with the molecular vibrations, and isotropic magnetic exchange between the loc…
Two-Dimensional Numerical Modelling of a Moored Floating Body under Sloping Seabed Conditions
2020
A coupled floating body-mooring line model is developed by combining a boundary element model for a two-dimensional floating body and a catenary mooring line model. The boundary element model is formulated in the time domain by a continuous Rankine source, and a reflection potential is introduced to account for the wave reflection due to sloping seabed. This newly developed model is validated by comparisons against available data. Then, dynamic response analyses are performed for the moored body in various seabed conditions. Compared with a flat seabed, a sloping seabed causes unsymmetrical mooring line configuration and generates noticeable effects in the motion responses of the floating b…
On the Use of a GPU-Accelerated Mobile Device Processor for Sound Source Localization
2017
Abstract The growing interest to incorporate new features into mobile devices has increased the number of signal processing applications running over processors designed for mobile computing. A challenging signal processing field is acoustic source localization, which is attractive for applications such as automatic camera steering systems, human-machine interfaces, video gaming or audio surveillance. In this context, the emergence of systems-on-chip (SoC) that contain a small graphics accelerator (or GPU), contributes a notable increment of the computational capacity while partially retaining the appealing low-power consumption of embedded systems. This is the case, for example, of the Sam…
User experiences of a mobile mental well-being intervention among pregnant women
2016
Postnatal depression affects 10 to 15 percent of women after childbirth. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is associated with better mental well-being and lower levels of depression. Digital ACT solutions enable providing potentially cost-effective access to interventions. This paper reports the user experiences of an ACT-based mobile mental well-being intervention among pregnant women. Twenty-nine mothers were recruited to a 6-month study. Usage rates were collected via usage logs and user experiences via questionnaires and interviews. The total usage time of the application was about 53 min per user. The application was perceived easy to use. The most common barriers of use were: co…
The adoption of green energy technologies: The role of policies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
2017
We contribute to the existing research about policy-induced technology adoption in several ways. First, we suggest a new survey design to measure the energy-related policy environment. Second, we simultaneously estimate the policy effects for the adoption propensity and the adoption intensity simultaneously and, third, we compare the policy effects in the three countries, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Based on a representative sample of firms for all three countries we find that policies essentially promote the adoption of technologies and they are practically ineffective for the intensity, which poses a great challenge to future policy designs. Voluntary agreements or demand-related f…
II) Wood pellets for home heating can be considered environmentally friendly fuels? Heavy metals determination by inductively coupled plasma-optical …
2016
Abstract The aim of the present study was to determine the concentrations of twelve potentially hazardous elements in wood pellet ashes obtained by the combustion of 13 pellet brands for sale in Italy, the impact of adding the ashes to soils and health risk of operator due to dust exposure. Samples were analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry. The concentrations of heavy metals in ashes from stoves ranged from 0.41 to 7.2 mg kg − 1 for As, from 1.3 to 12 mg kg − 1 for Sb, from 1.8 to 12 mg kg − 1 for Zn, from 0.23 to 0.8 mg kg − 1 for Pb, from 0.18 to 2.8 mg kg − 1 for Ni, from 0.09 to 1.0 mg kg − 1 for Cd, from 0.46 to 3.4 mg kg − 1 for Cr, from 0.94 to 2.7 mg …