Search results for "back"
showing 10 items of 2078 documents
Camouflage accuracy in Sahara-Sahel desert rodents
2020
1.Camouflage helps animals to hide from predators and is therefore key to survival. Although widespread convergence of animal phenotypes to their natural environment is well established, there is a lack of knowledge about how species compromise camouflage accuracy across different background types in their habitat. 2.Here we tested how background matching has responded to top‐down selection by avian and mammalian predators using Sahara‐Sahel desert rodents in North Africa. 3.We show that the fur coloration of several species has become an accurate match to different types of desert habitats. This is supported by a correlation analysis of colour and pattern metrics, investigation of animal‐t…
Improved camouflage through ontogenetic colour change confers reduced detection risk in shore crabs
2019
Abstract Animals from many taxa, from snakes and crabs to caterpillars and lobsters, change appearance with age, but the reasons why this occurs are rarely tested.We show the importance that ontogenetic changes in coloration have on the camouflage of the green shore crabs (Carcinus maenas), known for their remarkable phenotypic variation and plasticity in colour and pattern.In controlled conditions, we reared juvenile crabs of two shades, pale or dark, on two background types simulating different habitats for 10 weeks.In contrast to expectations for reversible colour change, crabs did not tune their background match to specific microhabitats, but instead, and regardless of treatment, all de…
The Eurasian Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris) has an effective camouflage against mammalian but not avian vision in boreal forests
2022
A well-known example of visual camouflage in birds is the plumage coloration of the Eurasian Treecreeper Certhia familiaris, yet this species’ camouflage has never been objectively quantified. Here, we quantify treecreeper camouflage in its boreal forest habitat, test whether treecreepers better match tree backgrounds at nest site, territory or habitat spatial scales, and explore which common tree species provide the best background match. Using photographic data of the birds and forested backgrounds, we test their background match using human, ferret and avian vision modelling. We found that a treecreeper’s wing and mantle provided closest background matching, whereas the wing stripe and t…
Acute Neuromuscular and Hormonal Responses to Power, Strength, and Hypertrophic Protocols and Training Background
2022
This study investigated how two slightly different athlete groups would differ in acute neuromuscular and endocrine responses to specific resistance exercise loadings and recovery compared to untrained participants. Power athletes (PA, n = 8), strength athletes (SA, n = 8) and non-athletes (NA, n = 7) performed power (PL, 7 × 6 × 50% of 1RM), maximal strength (MSL, 7 × 3 × 3RM), and hypertrophic (HL, 5 × 10 × 10RM) loadings in Smith-machine back-squat. Neuromuscular performance, serum testosterone, growth hormone, and cortisol concentrations, and blood lactate (BL) were measured before (Pre), at Mid and after (Post) loading, and after recovery for 24 and 48 h. All loadings led to acute decr…
DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE AND FLEXIBILITY IN THE STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE SUPERFICIAL BACK LINE OF PROFESSIONAL VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS: A PILOT STUDY
2019
Background: Massage is a common treatment in physiotherapy, often used as a prophylaxis or during recovery following a musculoskeletal contusion. One form of therapeutic massage is deep tissue massage (DTM), which has become more popular in recent years as a way of performing targeted work with the myofascial system. Aim of the study: The aim of the study was to examine the effectiveness of deep tissue massage on superficial back line flexibility (hip flexion and knee extension range of motion - ROM). Material and methods: Elite volleyball players (n=15), age: 22.8 ± 4.41 years; mass: 82.67 ± 6.99 kg; height: 1.96 ± 0.08 m) were recruited for this study. Deep tissue massage of the myofascia…
Feedback Linearization Based Nonlinear Control of SynRM Drives Accounting for Self- and Cross-Saturation
2022
This article proposes a nonlinear controller based on feedback linearization (FL) for synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM) drives which takes into consideration the magnetic saturation. The proposed nonlinear FL control based control technique has been developed starting from the theoretical definition of an original dynamic model of the SynRM taking into consideration both the self- and the cross-saturation effects. Such a control technique permits the dynamics of both the speed and axis flux loops to be maintained constant independently from the load and the saturation of the iron core in both constant flux and variable direct axis flux operating conditions. Finally, sensitivity of the pe…
SearchBot: Supporting voice conversations with proactive search
2018
Searching during conversations and social interactions is becoming increasingly common. Although searching could be helpful for solving arguments, building common ground, and reinforcing mutual assumptions, it can also cause inter-actional problems. Proactive search approaches can enrich conversations with additional information without neglecting the shared and established social norms of being attentive to ongoing interaction. This demo showcases SearchBot, a tool that minimizes the issues associated with the practice of searching during conversations. It accomplishes this by tracking conversational background speech and then providing continuous recommendations of related documents and e…
Customer Feedback System : Evolution Towards Semantically-enchanced Systems
2015
The digital economy requires services be created in nearly real time – while continuously listening to the customer. Managing and analysing the data collected about products and customers become very critical. Successful companies must collect data regarding customer behaviour in a sensible manner, understand their customers and engage in constant interaction with them. Nowadays, having a huge data storage capacity, everyone collects data and hopes that it will be useful someday. But, it is frustrating when you do not know whether something useful will come out of it. It is not a problem to collect data, but it is very difficult to analyse it. To utilize the data they collect and analyse cu…
Evaluating the performance of artificial neural networks for the classification of freshwater benthic macroinvertebrates
2014
Abstract Macroinvertebrates form an important functional component of aquatic ecosystems. Their ability to indicate various types of anthropogenic stressors is widely recognized which has made them an integral component of freshwater biomonitoring. The use of macroinvertebrates in biomonitoring is dependent on manual taxa identification which is currently a time-consuming and cost-intensive process conducted by highly trained taxonomical experts. Automated taxa identification of macroinvertebrates is a relatively recent research development. Previous studies have displayed great potential for solutions to this demanding data mining application. In this research we have a collection of 1350 …
A two-step, user-centered approach to personalized tourist recommendations
2017
Geo-localized, mobile applications can simplify a tourist visit, making the relevant Point of Interests more easily and promptly discernible to users. At the same time, such solutions must avoid creating unfitting or rigid user profiles that impoverish the users' options instead of refining them. Currently, user profiles in recommender systems rely on dimensions whose relevance to the user is more often presumed than empirically defined. To avoid this drawback, we build our recommendation system in a two-step process, where profile parameters are evaluated preliminarily and separately from the recommendations themselves. We describe this two-step evaluation process including an initial surv…