9,644 research outputs found
Age-dependent health status and song characteristics in the barn swallow
No full textBird song has been hypothesized to evolve, partly, to signal health status of males, and song features should therefore correlate with parasite load. Immune function, parasitism, and secondary sexual characters can, however, differ between age classes, and any apparent relationship between song and parasite loads can be the result of systematic age effects. We tested for an age-dependent relationship between sexually selected characters and measures of parasitism in a Spanish population of the barn swallow Hirundo rustica. A comparison across age classes revealed that chewing lice load, song duration, mean peak amplitude frequency of songs, and tail length differed significantly between yearlings and adults. In a longitudinal analysis, we found significant evidence for mean peak amplitude frequency of songs, tail length and chewing louse parasitism, and a nonsignificant tendency for song duration to change with age of an individual. We found a significant association between song duration and chewing louse load and between hematocrit and peak amplitude frequency of the rattle, the typical harsh terminal syllable. In tests for associations between song traits and health status, while controlling for age, age and chewing louse load were independently related to song duration. We found a significant relationship between pairing success and song duration, implying that females may use this song trait in their choice of parasite-free males. Although the song of the barn swallow may provide information about both male age and parasite resistance, signaling of health status appears to be independent of age effects, in accordance with the theory of parasite-mediated sexual selection, suggesting that male signals can be used as reliable indicators of parasitism. Copyright 2005.age; barn swallow; bird song; chewing louse; hematocrit; sedimentation rate
Extrapair paternity and the evolution of bird song
No full textBird song is usually considered to have evolved in the context of sexual selection. Because extrapair paternity is a major component of sexual selection, mating advantages at the social level for males that produce songs of high quality may be transformed into higher success in extrapair paternity. Therefore, males with longer and more complex songs should suffer less from extrapair paternity intraspecifically, whereas species with high rates of extrapair paternity, reflecting intense sperm competition, should produce more elaborate songs. Although some intraspecific studies demonstrated a negative link between features of songs and extrapair paternity in own nest, others failed to detect such a relationship. Contrary to expectation, a meta-analysis of all studies revealed no significant intraspecific evidence for songs being associated with extrapair paternity. In addition, in comparative analyses based on generalized least squares (GLS) models, we found that no measures of song complexity and temporal output were significantly related to extrapair paternity interspecifically, even when potentially confounding factors such as social mating system, life history, migration, habitat, or sexual dichromatism were held constant. Only plumage dichromatism was significantly related to extrapair paternity. The absence of both intra- and interspecific relationships between measures of song variability and extrapair paternity suggests that factors other than postmating sexual selection have been the important evolutionary forces shaping differences in song. Copyright 2004.bird song; evolution; extrapair paternity; generalized least squares; meta-analysis; repertoire size; sexual selection
Estudo hidrossedimentológico da bacia hidrográfica do Rio Negrinho - SC com o modelo SWAT
Get PDFDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia AmbientalO município de Rio Negrinho vem sofrendo com alteração da quantidade e qualidade da água devido a substituição da mata nativa por reflorestamento de pinus e acelerada urbanização. Visto isso, o presente estudo teve como objetivo analisar espacialmente os processos hidrossedimentológicos na bacia do Rio Negrinho - SC através do modelo SWAT. Foram realizado o monitoramento hidrossedimentológico, formação de banco de dados espaciais e tabulares, determinação das sub-bacias, calibração e validação do modelo, análises estatísticas, avaliação espacial da produção de água e de sedimentos e verificação da tolerância de perda de solos nas sub-bacias. Os dados simulados pelo modelo foram comparados com os dados observados de vazão em dois pontos de monitoramento da bacia e os dados de concentração de sedimento em um ponto da bacia. O desempenho do modelo foi analisado a partir do NASH (coeficiente de Nash-Sutcliffe), R2 (coeficiente de correlação), Erro médio (EM) e CMR (Coeficiente de massa residual). Os valores de NASH variaram de 0,48 a 0,61 para dados de vazão e 0,43 para dados de sedimento. Analisando o balanço hídrico da bacia o coeficiente de variação da precipitação, vazão e evapotranspiração mensal foi de 23%, 20% e 30% respectivamente. Já o armazenamento de água no solo variou muito pouco ao longo do ano, apresentando coeficiente de variação de 8,7%. Comparada a tolerância de perda de solos com os dados de produção de sedimento da bacia foi possível evidenciar que 11% da área da bacia apresentaram produção de sedimento maior que a tolerância.The Rio Negrinho city has been suffering from the quantitative and qualitative modification of water due to replacement of native forests by pine tree reforestation and accelerated urbanization. The objective of the present study was, therefore, to spatially analyze hydrosedimentological processes in the Negrinho river basin # SC through the SWAT model. Hydrosedimentological monitoring, construction of spatial databases and table, determination of sub-basins, the model calibration and validation, statistical analysis, spatial assessment of water and sediment yield and verification of soil loss tolerance in each sub-basin were carried out. The values simulated with the model were compared with the observed data of discharge at two monitoration points and of sediment concentration at one point in the basin. The model performance was evaluated with the coefficient of Nash-Sutcliffe (NASH), the correlation coefficient (R2), the average error (MS) and coefficient of residual mass (CRM). The NASH values were from 0.48 to 0.61 for the discharge data and 0.43 for the sediment data. Analyzing the water balance of the basin the coefficient of variation of the monthly precipitation, evapotranspiration and flow were 23%, 20% and 30%, respectively. The water storage in the soil varied little throughout the year, showing its coefficient of variation of 8.7%. Comparing to soil loss tolerance with the sediment production data, it was shown that 11% of the basin area would have more sediment production than the tolerated value
Immune challenge mediates vocal communication in a passerine bird: an experiment
No full textSecondary sexual characters may have evolved in part to signal resistance to parasites. Avian song has been hypothesized to be involved in this process, but the role of parasites in modulating acoustic communication systems in birds remains largely unknown, owing to lack of experiments. We studied the relationship between parasitism, testosterone, song performance, and mating success in male collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis) by experimentally challenging their immune system with a novel antigen. We predicted that a challenge of the immune system would reduce song performance, and that this reduction would be conditional on the size of a visual sexual signal, the forehead patch that was previously found to reflect resistance. An antagonistic linkage between testosterone and immune function would predict that a challenge of the immune system should suppress testosterone level. An immunological treatment by sheep red blood cells (SRBCs) triggered a decrease in body mass, testosterone level, and song rate, but other song traits were not significantly affected by the antigen challenge. Initial testosterone level was associated with forehead patch size and all song traits except song rate. SRBC injection caused stronger reduction in song rate among males with smaller forehead patches, and the change in song rate was also predictable by song features such as strophe complexity and length. We show that song rate and other song characteristics may be important cues in male-male competition and female choice. These results suggest that parasite-mediated sexual selection has contributed in shaping a complex acoustic communication system in the collared flycatcher, and that testosterone may play an important role in this process. Parasitism may drive a multiple signaling mechanism involving acoustic and visual traits with different signal function. Copyright 2004.bird song; collared flycatcher; immunocompetence; parasites; secondary sexual characters; testosterone
SC author and illustrator Kate Salley Palmer signing book
No full textPhotograph of SC author and illustrator Kate Salley Palmer signing boo
Estrutura de cooperação para redes interorganizacionais do turismo: um estudo no município de Itajaí-SC
Get PDFTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção.O objetivo geral deste estudo foi propor uma estrutura de cooperação, voltada às redes interorganizacionais do turismo a partir da literatura e da avaliação da relação interorganizacional de uma localidade inserida no Programa de Regionalização do Turismo. Pesquisou-se a rede interorganizacional do turismo do município de Itajaí/SC, integrante da Região Turística Costa Verde & Mar. Para elaboração da estrutura de cooperação, levou-se em consideração as abordagens consultadas ao longo da revisão da literatura. A pesquisa foi realizada em duas fases, sendo a primeira com abordagem qualitativa do tipo exploratória e a segunda com abordagem quantitativa do tipo descritiva. Na primeira fase da pesquisa realizou-se a pesquisa bibliográfica, a pesquisa documental e o estudo de casos selecionados, no qual se utilizou um roteiro de entrevistas com intuito de obter informações sobre as características da Região Turística e realizar um contato pessoal com as organizações de âmbito público e demais entidades que atuam com o setor turístico na localidade de Itajaí/SC. Na segunda fase da pesquisa, como procedimento técnico, adotou-se o levantamento ou survey e, como instrumento para o levantamento, optou-se pelo questionário estruturado com predomínio de perguntas fechadas. Com os dados apurados na segunda fase da pesquisa, foi realizado o tratamento destes com base em freqüências, média e moda, consideradas adequadas e suficientes para o que se desejou analisar. Os principais resultados da pesquisa apontaram que o setor turístico de Itajaí/SC não se constitui uma rede interorganizacional, tampouco possui iniciativas de ações cooperadas com médias baixas em todos dos atributos pesquisados. Embora não se constitua uma rede, considerou-se ao longo do estudo a fim de torná-la real a partir de seu engajamento à estrutura de cooperação proposta. A estrutura de cooperação foi adaptada para Itajaí-SC e sugeriu-se sua aplicação. Legitimou-se a estrutura de cooperação, bem como a sugestão de aplicação, junto a um grupo de especialistas a partir de critérios pré-estabelecidos. Ao final, conclui-se que a estrutura de cooperação, voltada às redes interorganizacionais do turismo permitirá o fortalecimento de iniciativas de cooperação das Regiões Turísticas que já estão estabelecidas por meio do Programa de Regionalização do Turismo Roteiros do Brasil, bem como das demais localidades, embora não contempladas pelo Programa, mas que buscam uma maior integração entre os atores de sua rede turística, sejam destinos principais ou complementare
Book signing by SC author and illustrator Kate Salley Palmer
No full textPhotograph of Book signing by SC author and illustrator Kate Salley Palme
Fabrication of CuInSe2 films and solar cells by the sequential evaporation of In2Se3 and Cu2Se binary compounds
No full textCu2Se/InxSe(x approximate to 1) double layers were prepared by sequentially evaporating In2Se3 and Cu,Se binary compounds at room temperature on glass or Mo-coated glass substrates and CuInSe2 films were formed by annealing them in a Se atmosphere at 550 degreesC in the same vacuum chamber. The InxSe thickness was fixed at 1 mum and the Cu2Se thickness was varied from 0.2 to 0.5 mum. The CuInSe2 films were single phase and the compositions were Cu-rich when the Cu, Se thickness was above 0.35 mum. And then, a thin CuIn3Se5 layer was formed on the top of the CuInSe2 film by co-evaporating In2Se3 and Se at 550 degreesC. When the thickness of CuIn3Se5 layer was about 150nm. the CuInSe2 cell showed the active area efficiency of 5.4% with V-oc = 286 mV, J(sc) = 36 mA/cm(2) and FF = 0.52. As the CuIn3Se5 thickness increased further, the efficiency decreased. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
Song authorship attribution
No full textIn this work, we apply authorship attribution to a large-scale corpus of song lyrics. As a sub-category of poetry, song lyrics embody cultural elements as well as stylistic attributes that are not present in prose. We draw attention to special characteristics such as repetitive sound patterns and rhyme based structures in lyrics that can be key to ownership, and present opportunities that cannot be employed for authorship attribution of other types of text such as tweets, emails, and blog posts. We first create a new balanced, large-scale data set of 12,000 song lyrics from 120 different artists. We propose CNN models for authorship attribution on this song lyric data set, in order to use structural information included in the lyrics, similarly to image classification. We conduct experiments at the character and sub-word levels that mostly reflect positional information. In addition, we use phoneme level features, which intrinsically involve attributes such as repetitions, rhyme, and meter, and represent elements unique to verse-based textual compositions. We attempt to discover idiosyncratic features and consequently author and genre associations by working with variants of CNN architectures that have been successfully used in other text classification domains. Our architecture choice results in a particular focus on lyric attributes residing in neighboring regions, since CNNs fail to apprehend long term textual dependencies. Finally, we empirically evaluate our results in comparison with the findings of previous test classification research from different domains
Song-Book: Ed Keyes and Dr. Best
No full textAn image of Springfield College president Ernest Best seated, holding a book out in front of him while a Springfield College student, Edward Keyes, stands in front of him. It appears that the Best is reading the student something from the book. According to the negative envelope this is the Springfield College Song Book.Wrtten on the original sleeve that the negative was contained in was "Subject: Song-book" and "Left to right: Ed Keyes, Dr. Best
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