Search results for "spatial behavior"
showing 10 items of 34 documents
MOBIlity assessment with modern TEChnology in older patients’ real-life by the General Practitioner: the MOBITEC-GP study protocol
2019
Abstract Background Mobility limitations in older adults are associated with poor clinical outcomes including higher mortality and disability rates. A decline in mobility (including physical function and life-space) is detectable and should be discovered as early as possible, as it can still be stabilized or even reversed in early stages by targeted interventions. General practitioners (GPs) would be in the ideal position to monitor the mobility of their older patients. However, easy-to-use and valid instruments for GPs to conduct mobility assessment in the real-life practice setting are missing. Modern technologies such as the global positioning system (GPS) and inertial measurement units …
Emergence and dispersal relative to natal nest in the digger wasp Stizus continuus (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae).
2009
The position of the emerging point has rarely been investigated as a factor possibly affecting the future nest settlement behaviour in Hymenoptera, in particular within nest aggregations. We studied the emergence and dispersion patterns of the digger wasp Stizus continuus. Individuals emerged daily in clumped patterns, possibly revealing a certain synchrony of emergence from the same nests, and protandry appeared both at seasonal and daily level. Differences between the number of females that nested relatively close or far from their emergence holes (EH) were either significant or not, depending on the year, and observed dispersal distances from the natal nests did not differ from those obt…
Spatial cues are relevant for learned preference/aversion shifts due to amino-acid deficiencies.
1998
Rats are able to choose appropriately between two versions of a novel diet, when one is amino-acid devoid and the other corrected. Recognition of the deficiency has been reported to occur within hours and to initiate a strong conditioned aversion. For that purpose the rat can use either oro-sensory cues or another alternative as the conditioned stimulus (CS) with which to associate the unconditioned stimuli (US) of either the adequate diet or the devoid diet. The present investigation was designed to determine whether rats have the ability to use place as a cue in amino-acid preference/aversion. In order to avoid interfering with any other than spatial sensory discrimination between the dev…
Reversal of prenatal diazepam-induced deficit in a spatial-object learning task by brief, periodic maternal separation in adult rats.
2005
In the rat, prenatal exposure to diazepam (DZ) induces a permanent reduction in GABA/BZ receptor (R) function and behavioural abnormalities. Environmental modifications during early stages of life can influence brain development and induce neurobiological and behavioural changes throughout adulthood. Indeed, a subtle, periodic, postnatal manipulation increases GABA/BZ R activity and produces facilitatory effects on neuroendocrine and behavioural responses. We here investigated the impact of prenatal treatment with DZ on learning performance in adult 3- and 8-month-old male rats and the influence of a brief, periodic maternal separation on the effects exerted by prenatal DZ exposure. Learnin…
A detailed analysis of the spatial distribution of Schöningen 13II-4 'Spear Horizon' faunal remains
2021
The Middle Pleistocene Schöningen 13II-4 'Spear Horizon' (Germany) is a key site for the study of human evolution, most notably for the discovery of Paleolithic wooden weaponry and evidence for developed hunting strategies. On the other hand, the 'Spear Horizon' offers an excellent opportunity to approach hominin spatial behavior, thanks to the richness of the archeological assemblage, its exceptional preservation, and the vast expanse of the excavated surface. Analyzing how space was used is essential for understanding hominin behavior at this unique open-air site and, from a wider perspective, for approaching how humans adapted to interglacial environments. In this article, we present an …
Place-based attributes and spatial expenditure behavior in tourism
2017
In recent discussions on local sustainable development, notions like “local for local” and “home bias” have often played a role. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether preferences for specific place-based attributes might constrain or support tourism participation and tourism destination choice of distinct socioeconomic groups of visitors. To test this proposition, a large data set from the Italian Households Budget Survey for the period 1997–2007 has been used and, by means of the double-hurdle model, tourism participation and expenditure are modeled over the life-cycle of tourists. These data are next merged with location-specific attributes including natural amenities and in…
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor is critically involved in basal and fluoxetine-stimulated adult hippocampal cell proliferation and in anxiety,…
2011
Intensive research is devoted to unravel the neurobiological mechanisms mediating adult hippocampal neurogenesis, its regulation by antidepressants, and its behavioral consequences. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that is expressed in the CNS, where its function is unknown. Here, we show, for the first time, the relevance of MIF expression for adult hippocampal neurogenesis. We identify MIF expression in neurogenic cells (in stem cells, cells undergoing proliferation, and in newly proliferated cells undergoing maturation) in the subgranular zone of the rodent dentate gyrus. A causal function for MIF in cell proliferation was shown using genetic (M…
Individual and Contextual Determinants of Cruise Passengers’ Behavior at Their Destination: A Survival Approach
2020
The proposed study will present an analysis of cruise passengers’ behavior at their destination. Mobility behavior will be analyzed in relation to socio-demographic characteristics through a survival modeling approach. Data collected through GPS devices on cruise passengers’ behavior in the ports of Palermo and Dubrovnik will be analyzed in order to determine similarities and differences among cruise passengers’ behaviors at their destination, according to socio-demographic characteristics. The authors of this chapter contend that the results of this research, involving the processing and the analysis of GPS data, will be of interest from methodological and destination management perspectiv…
Statistical analysis of latency outcomes in behavioral experiments
2011
In experimental designs of animal models, memory is often assessed by the time for a performance measure to occur (latency). Depending on the cognitive test, this may be the time it takes an animal to escape to a hidden platform (water maze), an escape tunnel (Barnes maze) or to enter a dark component (passive avoidance test). Latency outcomes are usually statistically analyzed using ANOVAs. Besides strong distributional assumptions, ANOVA cannot properly deal with animals not showing the performance measure within the trial time, potentially causing biased and misleading results. We propose an alternative approach for statistical analyses of latency outcomes. These analyses have less distr…
Minimum-cost distances in spatial analysis
1988
An axiomatic approach to distance is developed which focuses on thosebehavioral concepts of distance related to movement in space. In particular,spatial movement by behaving units is postulated to involve a choice fromamong some set of abstract trips in space, and implicitly, to involve theminimization of some relevant notion of trip costs. In this context, therelevant behavioral notion of distance in space is taken to be theminimum-cost distance generated by this choice process. These trip-costconcepts extend the classical notions of paths, path lengths, and shortestpaths in metric spaces. Hence many of the analytical results of the paperinvolve extensions of classical shortest-path distan…