University of Stirling
University of Stirling: DataSTORRE (Stirling Online Repository for Research Data)Not a member yet
118 research outputs found
Sort by
Neotropical canopy & understory bird assemblages
No full textData for the paper accepted for publication in Ecology and Evolution, collected during 60 bird surveys in Barro Colorado Nature Monument, Panama. Abstract from the paper as follows: Secondary forest habitats are increasingly recognized for their potential to conserve biodiversity in the tropics. However, the development of faunal assemblages in secondary forest systems varies according to habitat quality and species-specific traits. In this study, we predicted that the recovery of bird assemblages is dependent on secondary forest age and level of isolation, the forest stratum examined, and the species' traits of feeding guild and body mass. This study was undertaken in secondary forests in central Panama; spanning a chronosequence of 60, 90 and 120 year-old forests, and in neighboring old-growth forest. To give equal attention to all forest strata, we employed a novel method that paired simultaneous surveys in canopy and understory. This survey method provides a more nuanced picture than ground-based studies, which are biased towards understory assemblages. Bird reassembly varied according to both habitat age and isolation, although it was challenging to separate these effects, as the older sites were also more isolated than the younger sites. In combination, habitat age and isolation impacted understory birds more than canopy dwelling birds. Proportions of dietary guilds did not vary with habitat age, but were significantly different between strata. Body mass distributions were similar across forest ages for small-bodied birds, but older forest supported more large-bodied birds, probably due to control of poaching at these sites. Canopy assemblages were characterized by higher species richness, and greater variation in both dietary breadth and body mass, relative to understory assemblages. The results highlight that secondary forests may offer critical refugia for many bird species, particularly specialist canopy-dwellers. However, understory bird species may be less able to adapt to novel and isolated habitats, and should be the focus of conservation efforts encouraging bird colonization of secondary forests.Neotropical Canopy & Understory Bird Assemblages - Dataset.csv: data collected during 60 bird surveys in Barro Colorado Nature Monument, Panam
Rule-Understanding, subjective preferences, and social display rules
No full textThe prime objective of this study was to assess how children in the false belief condition infer from E2’s attempt to open an empty box that E2 must be looking for her toy. In this study we added a third, differently colored but otherwise identical, box. All remaining materials were the same as in dataset 1. Overall, 126 children between 18 and 32 months were tested either in the Theory of mind Child Lab of the University of Salzburg (n=20), in different childcare institutes in the city of Salzburg (n=87) and in Scotland (n=19). Testing in institutes took place in a separate room and in the presence of the child’s teacher or parent. Thirty-six children (28%) had to be excluded due to parental/ teacher (4) or experimenter error (4), fussiness (20), unclear responses (3) or because they did not respond to any helping request (5).
Overall, 29.1% of children (20,6% of the older (28–32 months) and 37.5% of the younger (18–27 months) ones) were excluded. The final sample consists of 90 children between 18.04 and 32.82 months (M=27.15 months, SD=3.65, 40 girls). Thirty-seven children participated in the replication conditions (Mage=27.17 months, SD=3.69). Six children spontaneously responded to E2’s nonverbal request, 13 children responded to E1’s prompts, five children responded to E2’s verbal prompts, 11 children responded to their parents/teachers prompt and one child needed parental/teacher assistance. Fifty-three children participated in the new conditions (Mage=27.13 months, SD=3.66). Seven children spontaneously responded to E2’s nonverbal request, 26 children responded to one of E1’s prompts, eight children responded to one of E2’s verbal prompts, 10 children responded to their parents/teachers prompting and one child needed parental/teacher assistance (unfortunately, for one child video recording is missing and therefore amount of prompts cannot be reported).Dataset 2 - Excel spreadshee
A long-term perspective on individual variability and population resilience in Amboseli elephants
No full textDemographic data gathered from 1972-2017 pertaining to three elephant families (Loxodonta africana) living in Amboseli National Park, as an illustration of changing family dynamics over time: (1) Large expanding family, (2) stable family, (3) family that went extinct. Demographic data includes individual name, sex, mother ID, whether mother was known, date of birth, date of death, date of dispersal from family (males), age at dispersal, age at first birth (female), and N births recorded to date.First file: Lee_et_al_Archive_Family_Info_Word_Template.docx, covers the period from 1972 to 2017 and records the basic demography: individual name, sex, mother ID, whether mother was known, date of birth, date of death, date of dispersal from family (males), age at dispersal, age at first birth (female), N births recorded to date; Second file: Lee_et_al._Archive_Data_fam_size_by_year_for_3_fams.jpg illustrates Family size over 45 years for 3 selected elephant families
Towards a better understanding of mirror-symmetry in human vision
No full textRecent studies have shown that limiting the lifetime of pattern elements improves symmetry detection, potentially by increasing the number of element locations. Here, we investigate how spatial relocation, luminance contrast modulation and lifetime duration of elements affect symmetry perception in dynamic stimuli. Stimuli were dynamic dot-patterns containing varying amounts of symmetry about a vertical axis. Symmetrical matched-pairs were: (i) relocated to multiple successive, but random locations (i.e. multiple locations condition), (ii) relocated between the same two locations (i.e. two locations condition), (iii) not, relocated, but their luminance contrast was modulated at different temporal frequencies (i.e. one location condition), and (iv) not relocated, but a single pattern was presented at full contrast (i.e. static condition). In the dynamic conditions, we varied the elements’ lifetime duration and temporal frequency of contrast modulation. We measured symmetry detection thresholds using a two interval forced choice procedure. Our results show improved performance for the multiple locations condition compared to two-location and static conditions, suggesting a cumulative process whereby weak symmetry information is integrated by spatiotemporal filters to increase overall symmetry signal strength. Performance also improved for the static, contrast modulated patterns, but this was explained by a reduction in perceived density. This suggests that different mechanisms mediate symmetry detection in dynamic stimuli and static contrast modulated patterns.All experimental code, raw data and subsequent analysis. Dedicated UnZip software is recommended for accessing the dataset, for example, IZArc
ARCoES: Adaptation and Resilience of Coastal Energy Supply
No full textA laboratory study was carried out in the first quarter of 2015 using a single diatom species Cylindrotheca closterium ((Ehrenberg) Lewin & Reimann (1964)) purchased from CCAP (Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa) and cadmium (Cd) spiked sediment (collected from Loch Fleet, Scotland, 57o56’N, 4o2’W) and growth media (f2+Si) was repeated three times for replication purposes in the CEF at University of Stirling. The experiment was run for 96 hours (following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for toxicity tests) illuminated on a 12/12-hour light/dark cycle at an irradiance of 60µmol photos m-2s-1 at 15oC. Samples were taken at three, 24 and 96 hours.
It was found that uptake of Cd varied with sediment properties revealing the importance of sediment particle size and organic matter content on metal bio-availability to diatoms. Additionally the presence of diatoms altered the partitioning of Cd between the sediment, overlying water and pore water.There are six .csv files, three files containing data and three accompanying files containing information to explain the data categories. The files are as follows;
• LabExperimentCdData.csv
Cadmium concentration (mg kg-1) data, analysed by XSERIES 2 ICP-MS (Thermo Scientific, Germany) for sediment, overlying water, pore water and diatom compartments of each experimental unit and supporting information
• MetadataForLabExperimentCdData.csv
• LabExperimentLOIData.csv
Percentage organic matter in sediment measured using the loss on ignition (LOI) method
• MetadataForLabExperimentLOIData.csv
• LabExperimentPSData.csv
Sediment particle size data measured using a Coulter LS 230 laser granulometer and classified according to the Udden-Wentworth scale
• MetadataForLabExperimentPSData.csvThis dataset does not comply with EPSRC's research data requirements because the creator did not know of the requirement
DAASE: Dynamic Adaptive Automated Software Engineering
No full textThe dataset contains landscape data for "How Perturbation Strength Shapes the Global Structure of TSP Fitness Landscapes", P. McMenemy, N. Veerapen, G. Ochoa. The 18th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation (EvoCOP 2018), 4 - 6 April 2018, Parma, Italy. The dataset describes the network structure of the local optima networks for 180 Travelling Salesman Problem instances, across 10 perturbation strengths, that are sampled in the paper. The TSP instances themselves are provided in the files clusteredInstances.zip and uniformInstances.zip and were generated using the DIMACS TSP instance generator (http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Challenges/TSP/download.html).The dataset contains landscape data for "How Perturbation Strength Shapes the Global Structure of TSP Fitness Landscapes", P. McMenemy, N. Veerapen, G. Ochoa. The 18th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation (EvoCOP 2018), 4 - 6 April 2018, Parma, Italy. The dataset describes the network structure of the local optima networks for 180 Travelling Salesman Problem instances, across 10 perturbation strengths, that are sampled in the paper. The TSP instances themselves are provided in the files clusteredInstances.zip and uniformInstances.zip and were generated using the DIMACS TSP instance generator (http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/Challenges/TSP/download.html). For the networks based on these instances, C506.zip, C755.zip and C1010.zip (resp. E506.zip, E755.zip and E1010.zip) each contain networks for clustered (resp. uniform) instances of size 506, 755 and 1010. Full details are given in the README.txt file
Face Matching for Automatic Identity Retrieval, Recognition, Verification and Management
No full textA reliable self-report measure to assess the broad spectrum of face recognition ability (FRA) from developmental prosopagnosia (DP) to super-recognition (SR) would make a valuable contribution to initial screening of large populations. We examined performance of 96 naive participants and seven SRs, using a range of face and object processing tasks and a newly developed 20-item questionnaire, the Stirling Face Recognition Scale (SFRS). Overall, our findings suggest that young adults have only moderate insight into their FRA, but those who have been previously informed of their (exceptional) performance, the SRs, estimate their FRA accurately. Principal Component Analysis of SFRS yielded two components. One loads on questions about low ability and correlates with perceptual tasks and one loads on questions about high FRA and correlates with memory for faces. We recommend that self-report measures of FRA should be used in addition to behavioural testing, to allow for cross-study comparisons, until new, more reliable instruments of self-report are developed. However, self-report measures should not be solely relied upon to identify highly skilled individuals. Implications of these results for theory and applied practice are discussedSFRS_dataset_QJEP_2018 - The file contains demographic information (variables 1 -5), scores in individual questions of the Stirling Face Recognition Scale (variables 6 – 25). Further, the file contains raw scores for the Cambridge Face Memory Test Long form (variable 26), Cambridge Car Memory Test (Variable 27), Models Face Matching Test (variable 28), Full SFRS score (variable 29), group (variable 30), Z scores for the above variables (variables 31-34), Experimenter collecting data (variable 35), PCA two factor solution (variable 37-38). Please see readme file for further details
ARCoES: Adaptation and Resilience of Coastal Energy Supply
No full textTo examine the uptake of metals under varying conditions of temperature and disturbance from historically contaminated sediment (collected at Lytham St. Anne’s, 53o43’58”N, 2o57’37”W) to a natural microphytobenthic community a study was conducted using an intertidal mesocosm. The study ran for a total of 231 days (from 16th September 2015 to 3rd May 2016) under three water temperatures (ambient, plus 1.5oC and plus 4.0oC) with sampling of algae and water at 10 intervals. Biomass on the sediment surface was monitored using Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as a proxy.
Diatoms were found to have a higher uptake of the metals analysed (except tin) than other types of algae (filamentous and sheet macroalgae), confirming their importance as a study organism with respect to metal uptake and potential mobilisation through the food chain. Sediment disturbance was shown to increase metal uptake from the sediment to algae, which is of concern due to predicted increases in storminess, as a consequence of climate change, which is likely to increase sediment disturbance and therefore future metal uptake to algae. There were indications of an antagonistic effect of temperature on sediment disturbance. Whilst disturbance increased uptake of metals to algae, increasing temperatures reduced this for some metals.There are eight .csv files, four files containing data and four accompanying files containing information to explain the data categories. The files are as follows;
• MesocosmAll.csv
Concentration (mg kg-1) data of 14 metals (Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Ag, Cd, Sn and Pb), analysed by XSERIES 2 ICP-MS (Thermo Scientific, Germany) for sediment, overlying water and diatom compartments of each experimental unit. Air, mud and water temperature data, normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) values, sediment water and organic matter content and supporting information.
• MetadataForMesocosmAll.csv
• MesocosmHourlyTemperature.csv
Hourly data for air, mud and water temperatures in the polytunnel and individual mesocosm tanks
• MetadataForMesocosmHourlyTemperature.csv
• MesoParticleSize.csv
Sediment particle size data measured using a Coulter LS 230 laser granulometer and classified according to the Udden-Wentworth scale
• MetadataForMesoParticleSize.csv
• NDVI.csv
NDVI values derived from reflectance measurements of the sediment surface and supporting information. Reflectance measurements were made using the ASD FieldSpec® UV/NIR throughout the course of the experiment, initially daily then switching to weekly as the growth rate slowed.
• MetadataForNDVI.csvThis dataset does not comply with EPSRC's research data requirements because the creator did not know of the requirement
DAASE: Dynamic Adaptive Automated Software Engineering
No full textBenchmarks are important to demonstrate the utility of optimisation algorithms, but there is controversy about the practice of benchmarking; we could select instances that present our algorithm favourably, and dismiss those on which our algorithm under-performs. Several papers highlight the pitfalls concerned with benchmarking, some of which concern the context of the automated design of algorithms, where we use a set of problem instances (benchmarks) to train our algorithm. As with machine learning, if the training set does not reflect the test set, the algorithm will not generalize. This raises some open questions concerning the use of test instances to automatically design algorithms.
We use differential evolution, and sweep the parameter settings to investigate the practice of benchmarking using the BBOB benchmarks. We make three key findings. Firstly, several benchmark functions are highly correlated. This may lead to the false conclusion that an algorithm performs well in general, when it performs poorly on a few key instances, possibly introducing unwanted bias to a resulting automatically designed algorithm. Secondly, the number of evaluations can have a large effect on the conclusion. Finally, a systematic sweep of the parameters shows how performance varies with time across the space of algorithm configurations.
This data set includes the experimental results and correlations reported in the paper.Data sets for the paper "Investigating Benchmark Correlations when Comparing Algorithms with Parameter Tuning"; Lee A. Christie, Alexander E.I. Brownlee, John R. Woodward; Proceedings of GECCO 2018, Kyoto Japan.
vote-si1.xlsx - ranks for the coarse-grained sweep.
finished-results/*.csv - these are the output files from which were calculated the correlations for the fine-grained sweep.
correlations.csv - the spearman's rank correlation data for the fine-grained sweep between functions for generations 1-25. Additional details are provided in the readme.txt file. Dedicated UnZip software is recommended for accessing the dataset, for example, IZArc
DAASE: Dynamic Adaptive Automated Software Engineering
No full textThe dataset contains landscape data and visualisations for "Visualising The Global Structure Of Search Landscapes: Genetic Improvement As A Case Study", N. Veerapen, G. Ochoa. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 2018. The dataset contains the execution traces of Iterated Local Search (ILS) and Hybrid GA runs on the code of two small programs (Triangle and TCAS) which are incrementally mutated. Visualisations of the networks generated from the execution traces are also included. Dedicated UnZip software is recommended for accessing the dataset, for example, IZArc.The dataset contains landscape data for "Visualising The Global Structure Of Search Landscapes: Genetic Improvement As A Case Study", N. Veerapen, G. Ochoa. Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines, 2018. The dataset contains the execution traces of Iterated Local Search (ILS) and Hybrid GA runs on the code of two small programs (Triangle and TCAS) which are incrementally mutated. The files are compressed within 8 zip files: 4 for the ILS and 4 for the Hybrid GA. triangle_ils_comparison_ops.zip contains ILS traces of the triangle program where comparison operators are mutated. triangle_ils_comparison_boolean_ops.zip contains ILS traces of the triangle program where comparison and Boolean operators are mutated. tcas_ils_comparison_ops.zip contains ILS traces of the TCAS program where comparison operators are mutated. tcas_comparison_ils_boolean_ops.zip contains ILS traces of the TCAS program where comparison and Boolean operators are mutated. The 4 other zip files follow a similar pattern for the Hybrid GA data. The README.txt file describes the structure of the files within the zip files. Finally, the visualisations_ils.pdf file contains visualisations of the networks produced from the ILS data