58,722 research outputs found
Utilisation of intensive foraging zones by female Australian fur seals.
Within a heterogeneous environment, animals must efficiently locate and utilise foraging patches. One way animals can achieve this is by increasing residency times in areas where foraging success is highest (area-restricted search). For air-breathing diving predators, increased patch residency times can be achieved by altering both surface movements and diving patterns. The current study aimed to spatially identify the areas where female Australian fur seals allocated the most foraging effort, while simultaneously determining the behavioural changes that occur when they increase their foraging intensity. To achieve this, foraging behaviour was successfully recorded with a FastLoc GPS logger and dive behaviour recorder from 29 individual females provisioning pups. Females travelled an average of 118 ± 50 km from their colony during foraging trips that lasted 7.3 ± 3.4 days. Comparison of two methods for calculating foraging intensity (first-passage time and first-passage time modified to include diving behaviour) determined that, due to extended surface intervals where individuals did not travel, inclusion of diving behaviour into foraging analyses was important for this species. Foraging intensity 'hot spots' were found to exist in a mosaic of patches within the Bass Basin, primarily to the south-west of the colony. However, the composition of benthic habitat being targeted remains unclear. When increasing their foraging intensity, individuals tended to perform dives around 148 s or greater, with descent/ascent rates of approximately 1.9 m•s-1 or greater and reduced postdive durations. This suggests individuals were maximising their time within the benthic foraging zone. Furthermore, individuals increased tortuosity and decreased travel speeds while at the surface to maximise their time within a foraging location. These results suggest Australian fur seals will modify both surface movements and diving behaviour to maximise their time within a foraging patch
Effective restoration of chiral and axial symmetries at finite temperature and density
The effective restoration of chiral and axial symmetries is investigated
within the framework of the SU(3) Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. The topological
susceptibility, modeled from lattice data at finite temperature, is used to
extract the temperature dependence of the coupling strength of the anomaly. The
study of the scalar and pseudoscalar mixing angles is performed in order to
discuss the evolution of the flavor combinations of pairs and its
consequences for the degeneracy of chiral partners. A similar study at zero
temperature and finite density is also realized.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at Strange Quark Matter 2004, Cape
Town, South Africa, 15-20 September, 200
A Dain Inequality with charge
We prove an upper bound for angular-momentum and charge in terms of the mass
for electro-vacuum asymptotically flat axisymmetric initial data sets with
simply connected orbit space
Arbitrary bi-dimensional finite strain crack propagation
In the past two decades numerous numerical procedures for crack propagation have been developed. Lately,
enrichment methods (either local, such as SDA or global, such as XFEM) have been applied with success to simple
problems, typically involving some intersections. For arbitrary finite strain propagation, numerous difficulties are
encountered: modeling of intersection and coalescence, step size dependence and the presence of distorted finite
elements. In order to overcome these difficulties, an approach fully capable of dealing with multiple advancing
cracks and self-contact is presented (see Fig.1). This approach makes use of a coupled Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian
method (ALE) and local tip remeshing. This is substantially less costly than a full remeshing while retaining its full
versatility. Compared to full remeshing, angle measures and crack paths are superior. A consistent continuationbased
linear control is used to force the critical tip to be exactly critical, while moving around the candidate set.
The critical crack front is identified and propagated when one of the following criteria reaches a material limiting
value: (i) the stress intensity factor; or (ii) the element-ahead tip stress. These are the control equations.
The ability to solve crack intersection and coalescence problems is shown. Additionally, the independence from
crack tip and step size and the absence of blade and dagger-shaped finite elements is observed. Classic benchmarks
are computed leading to excellent crack path and load-deflection results, where convergence rate is quadratic
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