1,720,984 research outputs found
Detecting tail biters by monitoring pig screams in weaning pigs
No full textAbstract
Early identification of tail biting and intervention are necessary to reduce tail lesions and their impact on animal health and welfare. Removal of biters has become an effective intervention strategy, but finding them can be difficult and time-consuming. The aim of this study was to investigate whether tail biting and, in particular, individual biters could be identified by detecting pig screams in audio recordings. The study included 288 undocked weaner pigs housed in six pens in two batches. Once a tail biter (n = 7) was identified by visual inspection in the stable and removed by the farm staff, the previous days of video and audio recordings were analyzed for pig screams (sudden increase in loudness with frequencies above 1 kHz) and tail biting events until no biting before the removal was observed anymore. In total, 2893 screams were detected in four pens where tail biting occurred. Of these screams, 52.9% were caused by tail biting in the observed pen, 25.6% originated from other pens, 8.8% were not assignable, and 12.7% occurred due to other reasons. In case of a tail biting event, screams were assigned individually to biter and victim pigs. Based on the audio analysis, biters were identified between one and nine days prior to their removal from the pen after visual inspection. Screams were detected earlier than the increase in hanging tails and could therefore be favored as an early warning indicator. Analyzing animal vocalization has potential for monitoring and early detection of tail biting events. In combination with individual marks and automatic analysis algorithms, biters could be identified and tail biting efficiently reduced. In this way, biters can be removed earlier to increase animal health and welfare.Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture 501100005908Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover (TIHO
Assessing the potential of conspecific playbacks as a post‐translocation management tool for white rhinoceros
No full textAbstract Translocations can be a useful management tool to support endangered species. Translocated white rhinoceroses sometimes disperse from their release sites and leave protected areas, requiring sedation and return transport by vehicles. To avoid stressful transportation, less invasive management tools are needed to get animals back to the release site. We tested whether playbacks of white rhinoceros calls can influence their movements and thereby offer a potential management tool. We performed 200 experiments with 26 free‐roaming white rhinoceroses in two reserves in Botswana and recorded response intensity and duration, including body movement toward and away from the loudspeaker in response to a socio‐positive and a socio‐negative call. Rhinoceroses responded more to conspecific calls than to control sounds but did not show consistent behavioral responses across all experiments per call type. Males approached the loudspeaker more often than females. The intensity of responses was higher for calls recorded from unfamiliar than from familiar callers and behavioral responses differed between reserves. Further research is necessary to develop an applicable design for a combination of playbacks that would more reliably lead to directed body movement responses
Contact calls of zoo and wild southern white rhinoceroses do not differ acoustically
No full textPhD stipend from the Department of Biology, University of CopenhagenGerman Research Foundation 501100001659Studienstiftung des Deutsches VolkesGerman Academic Exchange ServiceGerman Business FoundationOklahoma City Zoo Conservation Action Now! FundPittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium Conservation and Sustainability FundRiverbanks ZooGarden Satch Krantz Conservation FundSerengeti-Park-StiftungInternal Grant Agency of Palacký University OlomoucNational Research Foundation 10.13039/10001151
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
What the rhino's voice tells: Information encoded in the vocalizations of Southern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum)
Full text linkIn many mammalian species, acoustic communication is essential as a mode of signalling for the transmission of information and thus for coordinating social interactions. It is assumed that animals living in a more complex social environment will exhibit greater complexity in their acoustic communication system.
The aim of this thesis was to provide new insights into vocal communication and information encoded in vocalizations of the Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum), a species we still know too little about. The White rhinoceros is said to be the rhinoceros species with the most developed social system. Several attributes, which may contribute to vocal complexity of this species, have been analysed and their potential biological significance within and between species has been discussed.
In the first study, the vocal repertoire of infant and juvenile Southern white rhinoceros and age-dependent variations were investigated by analysing functional and structural characteristics of call types and by comparing infant and adult vocal repertoires. Results revealed a strong innate component to the development of vocal usage and production, but also a certain degree of flexibility during development with regard to call usage and contextual usage. Several adult call types were already present in new born White rhinoceros, whereas other call types were restricted to infancy or adulthood, or altered with regard to usage during development. In the second study, the acoustic encoding of an individual’s identity was investigated for several call types. These showed varying levels of individual distinctiveness as a function of the context of social interactions. In particular calls emitted in affiliative social interactions were characterised by the highest level of individual distinctiveness.
The presented thesis showed that the restricted plasticity of vocal communication during development seems to play only a minor role in the context of communication complexity. The potential of encoding indexical information, clearly contributes to the complexity of the communication system. Even if extensive data in the different rhinoceros species is still lacking, variability in vocal communication across these species is evident. Social and ecological factors may have shaped acoustic communication, in terms of both when to call and how signals look like.Die Kommunikation mittels akustischer Signale ist für viele Säugetiere eine wichtige Form der Informationsübertragung und damit für die Koordination sozialer Interaktionen. Man nimmt daher an, dass sich in Abhängigkeit von der Komplexität des Sozialsystems einer Art, eine komplexere akustische Kommunikation entwickelt hat. Zielsetzung dieser Arbeit war die Untersuchung der akustischen Kommunikation des Südlichen Breitmaulnashorns, die Nashornart mit dem ausgeprägtesten Sozialsystem, um neue Einblicke zu erhalten, welche Informationen in ihren Vokalisationen enthalten sind. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden verschiedene Attribute untersucht, die zur Komplexität der akustischen Kommunikation beitragen könnten. Darüber hinaus wurde ihre mögliche biologische Bedeutung diskutiert, auch im Vergleich mit anderen Nashornarten. In der ersten Studie dieser Arbeit wurde das vokale Repertoire von Jungtieren und Juvenilen des Südlichen Breitmaulnashorns untersucht. Dazu wurden sowohl die funktionellen, als auch die strukturellen Charakteristika der Ruftypen analysiert und mit denen von adulten Breitmaulnashörnern verglichen. Diverse Ruftypen adulter Nashörner konnten bereits bei neugeborenen Nashörnern beobachtet werden. Das Auftreten anderer Ruftypen schien sich hingegen ausschließlich auf bestimmte Altersgruppen zu beschränken, oder veränderte sich hinsichtlich ihrer Verwendung im Laufe der Entwicklung. Die Ergebnisse zeigten damit sowohl eine stark angeborene Komponente hinsichtlich der Produktion und Verwendung von Vokalisationen, aber auch eine gewisse Flexibilität bei der Verwendung bestimmter Ruftypen. In der zweiten Studie wurde das Potenzial die individuelle Identität eines Individuums akustisch zu kodieren für verschiedene Ruftypen untersucht. Individuelle akustische Unterschiede waren, in Abhängigkeit von ihrer Bedeutung in sozialen Interaktionen, bei verschiedenen Ruftypen unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägt. Besonders Ruftypen, die in affiliativen sozialen Interaktionen eine Rolle spielen, zeigten das größte Maß an Individualität. Mit dieser Arbeit konnte gezeigt werden, dass, im Gegensatz zur nur begrenzten Plastizität der akustischen Kommunikation des Breitmaulnashorns, das Potenzial diverser Ruftypen, die individuelle Identität des Senders zu kodieren, deutlich zur Komplexität beiträgt. Auch wenn umfangreiche Daten zur akustischen Kommunikation diverser Nashornarten nach wie vor fehlen, so zeichnen sich doch Unterschiede zwischen den Arten ab, für die sowohl soziale, als auch ökologische Faktoren ursächlich sein könnten
Dataset: Sex differences in the impact of social relationships on individual vocal signatures in grey mouse lemurs
No full text<p>Dataset used in the statistical analysis of the publication "Sex differences in the impact of social relationships on individual vocal signatures in grey mouse lemurs (<em>Microcebus murinus</em>)"</p>
<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p>
<p>Vocali<span>z</span>ations coordinate social interactions between conspecifics by conveying information concerning the individual or group identity of the sender. Social accommodation is a form of vocal learning where social affinity is signalled by converging or diverging vocali<span>z</span>ations to those of conspecifics. To investigate whether social accommodation is linked to the social lifestyle of the sender, we investigated sex-specific differences in social accommodation in a dispersed living primate, the grey mouse lemur, where females form stable sleeping groups whereas males live solitarily. We used 482 trill calls of 36 individuals from our captive breeding colony to compare acoustic dissimilarity between individuals with genetic relatedness, social contact time and body weight. Our results showed that female trills become more similar the more time females spen<span>d</span> with each other independent of genetic relationship, suggesting vocal convergence. In contrast, male trills were affected more by genetic than social factors. However, focus<span>s</span>ing only on sociali<span>z</span>ed males, male trills diverged from each other the more time males were cage partners. Thus, grey mouse lemurs show the capacity for social accommodation, with females converging their trills to signal social closeness to sleeping group partners, whereas males do not adapt or diverge their trills to signal individual distinctiveness. </p>
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<p>For details concerning the recording of the trills confer to the publication at doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0193</p>
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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