Taxonomy and ecology of predatory marine flatworms (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida) in Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Marine flatworms are important mobile predators on hard substrate, however little is known about their life history. I recorded seven species of flatworms in Botany Bay and described a new species of flatworm Imogine lateotentare sp. nov. It is distinguished from other species in the same genus by having small, transparent and inconspicuous tentacles and continuous bands of numerous frontal and cerebral eyes. This new flatworm species was found closely associated with the barnacle Balanus variegatus (Darwin, 1854) on which it fed. Marine flatworms provide elaborate parental care to their offspring but its significance has not been experimentally confirmed. I provided quantitative measurements of the significance of parental care behaviour in Echinoplana celerrima and Stylochus pygmaeus under controlled laboratory conditions. I also examined the changes in reproductive behaviour of E. celerrima and the hatching success of their eggs when exposed to three putative flatworm egg predators. Brooding behaviour of neither species of flatworm enhanced the hatching success of their eggs and exposure of E. celerrima to the potential egg predators did not affect the timing of hatching or hatching success of its eggs. However, E. celerrima spent more time guarding their eggs when exposed to the potential egg predators. Brooding may be an innate behaviour in marine flatworms but it is not essential to their reproductive success. Marine flatworms are closely associated with sessile organisms and these assemblages are common in bays and estuaries which are subject to anthropogenic inputs from various sources. Impacts of pollutants are known for many flatworm prey species but little is known about the effects on the flatworm themselves. I examined the influence of sublethal concentrations of copper ranging from 0 to 50 μg L-1 on the predatory and reproductive behaviour of Stylochus pygmaeus. These worms were more sensitive to low levels of copper pollution than their barnacle preys. Response of flatworms to physical stimulation, number of egg batches laid and hatching success were greatly reduced at higher copper concentrations. In areas polluted by heavy metals, flatworm populations will be affected at lower concentrations than their barnacle prey and which may alter sessile invertebrate community structure

Hedonic pricing models for metropolitan bus services

Conventional studies on the pricing of bus services use the cost structure to explain bus fares. In this paper, a hedonic pricing model for bus services in Hong Kong is estimated. The contributions of cost and market factors are uncovered. It is found that the cost factors dominate the determination of bus fares. In contrast to our expectation, bus fares do not react to competition faced by bus companies. Moreover, except the three cross-harbour tunnels, the bus fare has no direct relationship with the tolls of other tunnels. Our model serves well as a reference tool for bus companies to set market-acceptable bus fares.Hedonic Pricing Model, Bus Fares, Kowloon Motor Bus.

IoT-based Asset Management System for Healthcare-related Industries

The healthcare industry has been focusing efforts on optimizing inventory management procedures through the incorporation of Information and Communication Technology, in the form of tracking devices and data mining, to establish ideal inventory models. In this paper, a roadmap is developed towards a technological assessment of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the healthcare industry, 2010–2020. According to the roadmap, an IoT-based healthcare asset management system (IoT-HAMS) is proposed and developed based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Fuzzy Logic (FL), incorporating IoT technologies for asset management to optimize the supply of resources

Maintaining Soft Arc Consistency in BnB-ADOPT+ During Search

Gutierrez and Meseguer show how to enforce consistency in BnB-ADOPT + for distributed constraint optimization, but they consider unconditional deletions only. However, during search, more values can be pruned conditionally according to variable instantiations that define subproblems. Enforcing consistency in these subproblems can cause further search space reduction. We introduce efficient methods to maintain soft arc consistencies in every subproblem during search, a non trivial task due to asynchronicity and induced overheads. Experimental results show substantial benefits on three different benchmarks. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.The work of Gutierrez and Meseguer was partially supported by the Spanish project TIN2009-13591-C02-02 and Generalitat de Catalunya 2009-SGR-1434.Peer Reviewe

Walking for transportation in Hong Kong Chinese urban elders: a cross-sectional study on what destinations matter and when

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Key factors in encouraging and empowering undergraduates to practice service leadership through extra-curricular service-learning practicums

While internships bridge students\u27 academic major to the world of work, in this paper, we focus on practicums as vehicles for service leadership development. In the summers of 2013 and 2014, Lingnan University arranged 28 full-time practicums in 13 partner organizations, mainly not-for-profit organizations or social enterprises, for students with prior service-learning experience. Practicums lasted 6 weeks in 2013, and 8 weeks in 2014. Students attended a 3-hour preparatory workshop on service leadership, and an interim review meeting. Through interviews with 26 practicum students and site supervisors from 13 partner organizations, we identified three factors that enabled practicum students to develop as service leaders. The first factor was the availability of practicum tasks that required innovation to identify and meet hitherto unmet needs. Successful practicums allowed students to create or extend events or arrangements that made a clear difference to the achievement of the social mission of their respective host organizations. Students were empowered to initiate responsibility for service planning, organization and delivery, including the need to anticipate and respond to end -user contingencies and demands. The second broad factor was the availability of a supportive site supervisor, willing and able to provide timely briefings, guidance, coaching and feedback. The third factor was the developmental readiness of the practicum student. Developmentally -ready students were psychologically prepared to seek out new challenges, cared about both end-user service-recipients and other stakeholders, were committed to making a difference, and had sufficient skills, knowledge, and self-confidence to work things out independently and arrive at their own decisions. They found effective ways to approach their site supervisor whenever necessary, and by demonstrating their competence and integrity, they were able to build trust. We highlight four cases, which reveal differences between traditional internships and the innovation -oriented nature of successful service leadership practicums. The first features a supportive site supervisor and two developmentally-ready practicum students. The second involves a moderately-supportive site supervisor, one developmentally-ready practicum student, and one moderately-ready practicum student. The third features a supportive site supervisor, one developmentally-ready practicum student, and one moderately-ready practicum student. The fourth involves a less-supportive site supervisor and a less-ready practicum student