Search results for "Mechanism"

Bank vole alarm pheromone chemistry and effects in the field

2021

Chemical communication plays an important role in mammalian life history decisions. Animals send and receive information based on body odour secretions. Odour cues provide important social information on identity, kinship, sex, group membership or genetic quality. Recent findings show, that rodents alarm their conspecifics with danger-dependent body odours after encountering a predator. In this study, we aim to identify the chemistry of alarm pheromones (AP) in the bank vole, a common boreal rodent. Furthermore, the vole foraging efficiency under perceived fear was measured in a set of field experiments in large outdoor enclosures. During the analysis of bank vole odour by gas chromatograph…

Differences in Cellular Encapsulation of Six Termite (Isoptera) Species Against Infection by the Entomopathogenic FungusMetarhizium anisopliae

2011

Termites (Isoptera) are eusocial insects, which live in an environment that can favor the spread of pathogens. To reduce the chance of an epizootic within a colony, termites have evolved many defense mechanisms. Most studies have focused on the social aspect of disease resistance, while the individual capacity of a termite to survive an infection remains poorly documented. We previously showed that when the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar), was exposed to the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae (Metch.) Sorokin, cellular encapsulation of the penetrating fungus was one of the last lines of defense for individual termites to prevent internal mycosis. …

Does Population Density Determine the Mating Strategy in Males of the Water Strider Aquarius paludum?

2018

Mating behavior of a large Aquarius paludum paludum (Fabricius 1794) (Hemiptera: Gerridae: Gerrini) population was investigated on several field surveys during the mating season. Both types of mating behavior known for semi-aquatic true bugs were observed in the studied population: aggressive Type I mating for non-territorial males and unaggressive Type II mating for the territorial males. Some males establish individual territories at the lake shores that they defend for around one hour and switch to aggressive mating if they fail to attract a female to mate, while most males remain non-territorial. Radial 1–1.5 meter territories were aggressively defended from other males, conflicts being…

Plant functional and taxonomic diversity in European grasslands along climatic gradients

2021

Aim European grassland communities are highly diverse, but patterns and drivers of their continental-scale diversity remain elusive. This study analyses taxonomic and functional richness in European grasslands along continental-scale temperature and precipitation gradients. Location Europe. Methods We quantified functional and taxonomic richness of 55,748 vegetation plots. Six plant traits, related to resource acquisition and conservation, were analysed to describe plant community functional composition. Using a null-model approach we derived functional richness effect sizes that indicate higher or lower diversity than expected given the taxonomic richness. We assessed the variation in abso…

Is mate choice in Drosophila males guided by olfactory or gustatory pheromones ?

2010

International audience; Drosophila melanogaster flies use both olfactory and taste systems to detect sex pheromones and select the most suitable mate for reproduction. In nature, flies often face multiple potential partners and should have an acute sensory ability to discriminate between different pheromonal bouquets. We investigated both the pheromones and the chemosensory neurons influencing Drosophila mate choice. We measured various courtship traits in single tester males simultaneously presented with two target male and/or female flies carrying different pheromonal bouquets (pairs of control flies of the same or different sex, same-sex target pairs of pheromonal variant strains). The c…

Exploring how social interactions influence regulators and innovators: The case of regulatory sandboxes

2020

Like incubators, regulatory sandboxes constitute a prominent mechanism to enable entrepreneurial activities that guide financial technology (FinTech) firms through regulatory frameworks in the financial industry. Because they are new, there is a lack of research on regulatory sandboxes; most studies have investigated legal aspects while overlooking the management perspective. To address this gap, this paper builds on incubation research studies to explore how social interactions within regulatory sandboxes influence the practices of regulators and regulatees, using social capital theory. An exploratory-abductive approach is adopted, using data collected from 16 semi-structured interviews. T…

Influence of friction stir processing conditions on the manufacturing of Al-Mg-Zn-Cu alloy/boron carbide surface composite

2018

Abstract Surface metal matrix composites were synthesized via friction stir processing (FSP) on the surface of aluminium alloy 7075 (AA 7075) sheets by incorporating B4C particles (B4CP). The influence of tool rotational speeds, powder particle sizes, and change in tool travel direction between FSP passes on particle distribution and resulting properties were studied in detail. Change in tool travel direction, decreased tool rotation speed and fine B4C particles enhanced B4CP distribution and wear properties thereof. Wear resistance of composites were doubled on account of the B4CP distribution and resultant several strengthening mechanisms.

Prediction-Based Assembly Assistance System

2020

This paper presents the design of a prediction-based assembly assistance system for manual operations and the results obtained on the data collected from experiments of assembling a customizable product. We integrated into the proposed system a Markov predictor improved with a padding mechanism whose role is to recommend the next assembly step and to detect the worker’s errors. The predictor is trained with correct assembly patterns and tested with real assembly/manufacturing data. The proposed predictor improves the coverage and, thus, there is a significantly higher number of assembly steps which are correctly correlated with the real intentions of the workers.

Analysis of Linear Feedback Position Control in Presence of Presliding Friction

2016

Graph-theoretical derivation of brain structural connectivity

2020

Brain connectivity at the single neuron level can provide fundamental insights into how information is integrated and propagated within and between brain regions. However, it is almost impossible to adequately study this problem experimentally and, despite intense efforts in the field, no mathematical description has been obtained so far. Here, we present a mathematical framework based on a graph-theoretical approach that, starting from experimental data obtained from a few small subsets of neurons, can quantitatively explain and predict the corresponding full network properties. This model also changes the paradigm with which large-scale model networks can be built, from using probabilisti…