Geographical and temporal body size variation in a reptile: roles of sex, ecology, phylogeny and ecology structured in phylogeny.

Geographical body size variation has long interested evolutionary biologists, and a range of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed patterns. It is considered to be more puzzling in ectotherms than in endotherms, and integrative approaches are necessary for testing non-exclusive alternative mechanisms. Using lacertid lizards as a model, we adopted an integrative approach, testing different hypotheses for both sexes while incorporating temporal, spatial, and phylogenetic autocorrelation at the individual level. We used data on the Spanish Sand Racer species group from a field survey to disentangle different sources of body size variation through environmental and individual genetic data, while accounting for temporal and spatial autocorrelation. A variation partitioning method was applied to separate independent and shared components of ecology and phylogeny, and estimated their significance. Then, we fed-back our models by controlling for relevant independent components. The pattern was consistent with the geographical Bergmann's cline and the experimental temperature-size rule: adults were larger at lower temperatures (and/or higher elevations). This result was confirmed with additional multi-year independent data-set derived from the literature. Variation partitioning showed no sex differences in phylogenetic inertia but showed sex differences in the independent component of ecology; primarily due to growth differences. Interestingly, only after controlling for independent components did primary productivity also emerge as an important predictor explaining size variation in both sexes. This study highlights the importance of integrating individual-based genetic information, relevant ecological parameters, and temporal and spatial autocorrelation in sex-specific models to detect potentially important hidden effects. Our individual-based approach devoted to extract and control for independent components was useful to reveal hidden effects linked with alternative non-exclusive hypothesis, such as those of primary productivity. Also, including measurement date allowed disentangling and controlling for short-term temporal autocorrelation reflecting sex-specific growth plasticity

How to generate pentagonal symmetry using Turing systems

We explore numerically the formation of Turing patterns in a confined circular domain with small aspect ratio. Our results show that stable fivefold patterns are formed over a well defined range of disk sizes, offering a possible mechanism for inducing the fivefold symmetry observed in early development of regular echinoids. Using this pattern as a seed, more complex biological structures can be mimicked, such as the pigmentation pattern of sea urchins and the plate arrangements of the calyxes of primitive camerate crinoids

Non-linear effects on Turing patterns: time oscillations and chaos.

We show that a model reaction-diffusion system with two species in a monostable regime and over a large region of parameter space, produces Turing patterns coexisting with a limit cycle which cannot be discerned from the linear analysis. As a consequence, Turing patterns oscillate in time, a phenomenon which is expected to occur only in a three morphogen system. When varying a single parameter, a series of bifurcations lead to period doubling, quasi-periodic and chaotic oscillations without modifying the underlying Turing pattern. A Ruelle-Takens-Newhouse route to chaos is identified. We also examined the Turing conditions for obtaining a diffusion driven instability and discovered that the patterns obtained are not necessarily stationary for certain values of the diffusion coefficients. All this results demonstrates the limitations of the linear analysis for reaction-diffusion systems

Coubertin and the artistic competitions in the Modern Olympic Games

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la importancia que tenía para Coubertin la inclusión de concursos artísticos en el programa oficial de los Juegos Olímpicos modernos. Se estudiará cómo, cuándo y por qué surgió la idea en Coubertin de unir de manera armoniosa las artes y las letras a los Juegos Olímpicos, como ya ocurriera en la antigua Olimpia. En los Juegos Olímpicos de Estocolmo de 1912, se celebraron por primera vez competiciones deportivas y concursos artísticos, cumpliéndose el anhelo de Coubertin. Sin embargo, después de siete citas olímpicas en las que se habían celebrado concursos artísticos, el COI decidió suprimirlos en 1949, sustituyéndolos por “Olimpíadas Culturales”, “exhibiciones” o “exposiciones”. La metodología de este estudio es histórica y se fundamenta en fuentes primarias y secundarias. Como conclusión, para Coubertin fueron tan importantes los concursos artísticos en los Juegos Olímpicos modernos que tuvieron el mismo rango que las competiciones deportivasThe aim of this essay is to analyse the importance that Coubertin gave to including the artistic competitions in the official programme of the modern Olympic Games. It will be studied how, when and why Coubertin's idea of harmoniously joining arts and letters to the Olympic Games appeared, as it had already happened in ancient Olympia. In the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912, sport and artistic competitions were celebrated for the first time, fulfilling thus Coubertin's longing. However, after seven Olympic events where artistic competitions had been held, the IOC decided to eliminate them in 1949 and to replace them for "Cultural Olympics", "exhibitions" or "expositions". The methodology of this study is historical and based on primary and secondary sources. In conclusion, to Coubertin the artistic competitions in the modern Olympic Games were so important as to have the same status as the sport competition

Portable device for presbyopia correction with optoelectronic lenses driven by pupil response

©2020. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by /4.0/ This document is the Published, version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Scientific Reports. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77465-5A novel portable device has been developed and built to dynamically, and automatically, correct presbyopia by means of a couple of opto-electronics lenses driven by pupil tracking. The system is completely portable providing with a high range of defocus correction up to 10 D. The glasses are controlled and powered by a smartphone. To achieve a truly real-time response, image processing algorithms have been implemented in OpenCL and ran on the GPU of the smartphone. To validate the system, different visual experiments were carried out in presbyopic subjects. Visual acuity was maintained nearly constant for a range of distances from 5 m to 20 cm

GPU-based processing of Hartmann-Shack images for accurate and high-speed ocular wavefront sensing

©2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This document is the Accepted version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Future Generation Computer Systems. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.09.010Hartmann–Shack aberrometry is a widely used technique in the field of visual optics but, high-speed and accurate processing of Hartmann–Shack images can be a computationally expensive/resource intensive task. While some advancements have been made in achieving high-performance processing units, they have not been specifically designed for processing Hartmann–Shack images of the human eye with Graphics Processing Units. In this work, we present the first full-Graphics Processing Unit implementation of a Hartmann–Shacksensor algorithm aimed at accurately measuring ocular aberrations at a high speed from high-resolution spot pattern images. The proposed algorithm, called PaPyCS (Parallel Pyramidal Centroid Search), is inherently parallel and performs a very robust centroid search to avoid image noise and other artifacts. This is a field where the use of Graphics Processing Units have not been exploited despite the fact that they can boost Adaptive Optics systems and related closed-loop approaches. Our proposed implementation achieves processing speeds of 380 frames per second for high resolution (1280x1280 pixels) images, in addition to showing a high resilience to system and image artifacts that appear in Hartmann–Shack images from human eyes: more than 98% of the Hartmann–Shack images, with aberrations of up to 4m Root Mean Square for a 5.12mm pupil diameter, were measured with less than 0.05m Root Mean Square Error, which is basically negligible for ocular aberrations

Microhabitat selection in the common lizard: implications of biotic interactions, age, sex, local processes, and model transferability among populations.

Modeling species' habitat requirements are crucial to assess impacts of global change, for conservation efforts and to test mechanisms driving species presence. While the influence of abiotic factors has been widely examined, the importance of biotic factors and biotic interactions, and the potential implications of local processes are not well understood. Testing their importance requires additional knowledge and analyses at local habitat scale. Here, we recorded the locations of species presence at the microhabitat scale and measured abiotic and biotic parameters in three different common lizard (Zootoca vivipara) populations using a standardized sampling protocol. Thereafter, space use models and cross-evaluations among populations were run to infer local processes and estimate the importance of biotic parameters, biotic interactions, sex, and age. Biotic parameters explained more variation than abiotic parameters, and intraspecific interactions significantly predicted the spatial distribution. Significant differences among populations in the relationship between abiotic parameters and lizard distribution, and the greater model transferability within populations than between populations are in line with effects predicted by local adaptation and/or phenotypic plasticity. These results underline the importance of including biotic parameters and biotic interactions in space use models at the population level. There were significant differences in space use between sexes, and between adults and yearlings, the latter showing no association with the measured parameters. Consequently, predictive habitat models at the population level taking into account different sexes and age classes are required to understand a specie's ecological requirements and to allow for precise conservation strategies. Our study therefore stresses that future predictive habitat models at the population level and their transferability should take these parameters into account