Testing the anxiety reduction function of grooming interactions in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)

Together with its hygienic and social function, grooming is thought to reduce anxiety. However, empirical evidence on the anxiety-reduction function of grooming is scarce. We collected 10-minute focal data on the donor and recipient of grooming using the post-grooming / matchedcontrol (PG-MC) method. In these PGs and MCs sessions, we recorded the occurrence of selfdirected behaviours (i.e. scratching and self-grooming), which are behavioural indicators of anxiety. We found mixed evidence of the relationship between anxiety and grooming interactions. The link between grooming and anxiety may be more complex than originally thought

The organization of collective group movements in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus): social structure drives processes of group coordination in macaques

Social animals have to coordinate activities and collective movements to benefit from the advantages of group living. Animals in large groups maintain cohesion by self-organization processes whereas in smaller groups consensus decisions can be reached. Where consensus decisions are relevant leadership may emerge. Variation in the organization of collective movements has been linked to variation in female social tolerance among macaque species ranging from despotic to egalitarian. Here we investigated the processes underlying group movements in a wild macaque species characterized by a degree of social tolerance intermediate to previously studied congeneric species. We focused on processes before, during and after the departure of the first individual. To this end, we observed one group of wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in the Middle Atlas, Morocco using all-occurrence behaviour sampling of 199 collective movements. We found that initiators of a collective movement usually chose the direction in which more individuals displayed pre-departure behavior. Dominant individuals contributed to group movements more than subordinates, especially juveniles, measured as frequencies of successful initiations and pre-departure behaviour. Joining was determined by affiliative relationships and the number of individuals that already joined the movement (mimetism). Thus, in our study group partially shared consensus decisions mediated by selective mimetism seemed to be prevalent, overall supporting the suggestion that a species’ social style affects the organization of group movements. As only the most tolerant species show equally shared consensus decisions whereas in others the decision is partially shared with a bias to dominant individuals the type of consensus decisions seems to follow a stepwise relation. Joining order may also follow a stepwise, however opposite, relationship, because dominance only determined joining in highly despotic, but not in intermediate and tolerant species

Evaluation of the use of PetrifilmTM EB count plates for the enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae in poultry samples.

Avaliação do uso de placas PetrifilmTM EB para a enumeração de enterobacteriaceae em amostras de carcaças de frango. Um teste rápido, que apresente o resultado em curto período de tempo, que seja simples, sensível para detectar baixos níveis de micro-organismos, preciso e que não seja caro, seria o mais adequado para a rotina laboratorial da indústria de alimentos ou mesmo para os laboratórios de Saúde Pública. Um dos métodos alternativos prontos para o uso, comercialmente disponíveis no mercado, são as placas PetrifilmTM. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar se há diferença estatística significativa entre o método convencional - empregando o ágar vermelho violeta bile glicose ? e o método alternativo, PetrifilmTM EB (3M Company), para a enumeração de Enterobacteriaceae em carcaças de frango

The effects of social network position on the survival of wild Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus

It has long been shown that the social environment of individuals can have strong effects on health, well-being, and longevity in a wide range of species. Several recent studies found that an individual’s number of affiliative partners positively relates to its probability of survival. Here, we build on these previous results to test how both affiliation and aggression networks predict Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) survival in a “natural experiment.” Thirty out of 47 wild Barbary macaques, living in 2 groups, died during an exceptionally cold winter in the Middle Atlas Mountains, Morocco. We analyzed the affiliation and aggression networks of both groups in the 6 months before the occurrences of these deaths, to assess which aspects of their social relationships enhanced individual survivorship. Using only the affiliation network, we found that network clustering was highly predictive of individual survival probability. Using only the aggression network, we found that individual survival probability increased with a higher number of aggression partners and lower clustering coefficient. Interestingly, when both affiliation and aggression networks were considered together, only parameters from the aggression network were included into the best model predicting individual survival. Aggressive relationships might serve to stabilize affiliative social relationships, thereby positively impacting on individual survival during times of extreme weather conditions. Overall, our findings support the view that aggressive social interactions are extremely important for individual well-being and fitness

Experience-based human perception of facial expressions in Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)

Background Facial expressions convey key cues of human emotions, and may also be important for interspecies interactions. The universality hypothesis suggests that six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) should be expressed by similar facial expressions in close phylogenetic species such as humans and nonhuman primates. However, some facial expressions have been shown to differ in meaning between humans and nonhuman primates like macaques. This ambiguity in signalling emotion can lead to an increased risk of aggression and injuries for both humans and animals. This raises serious concerns for activities such as wildlife tourism where humans closely interact with wild animals. Understanding what factors (i.e., experience and type of emotion) affect ability to recognise emotional state of nonhuman primates, based on their facial expressions, can enable us to test the validity of the universality hypothesis, as well as reduce the risk of aggression and potential injuries in wildlife tourism. Methods The present study investigated whether different levels of experience of Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus, affect the ability to correctly assess different facial expressions related to aggressive, distressed, friendly or neutral states, using an online questionnaire. Participants’ level of experience was defined as either: (1) naïve: never worked with nonhuman primates and never or rarely encountered live Barbary macaques; (2) exposed: shown pictures of the different Barbary macaques’ facial expressions along with the description and the corresponding emotion prior to undertaking the questionnaire; (3) expert: worked with Barbary macaques for at least two months. Results Experience with Barbary macaques was associated with better performance in judging their emotional state. Simple exposure to pictures of macaques’ facial expressions improved the ability of inexperienced participants to better discriminate neutral and distressed faces, and a trend was found for aggressive faces. However, these participants, even when previously exposed to pictures, had difficulties in recognising aggressive, distressed and friendly faces above chance level. Discussion These results do not support the universality hypothesis as exposed and naïve participants had difficulties in correctly identifying aggressive, distressed and friendly faces. Exposure to facial expressions improved their correct recognition. In addition, the findings suggest that providing simple exposure to 2D pictures (for example, information signs explaining animals’ facial signalling in zoos or animal parks) is not a sufficient educational tool to reduce tourists’ misinterpretations of macaque emotion. Additional measures, such as keeping a safe distance between tourists and wild animals, as well as reinforcing learning via videos or supervised visits led by expert guides, could reduce such issues and improve both animal welfare and tourist experience

A (in)constitucionalidade da ação de regresso de acidentes de trabalho

As ações regressivas acidentárias, atualmente muito comuns, vêm crescendo conforme as demandas de acidente de trabalho. No entanto, essas demandas geram conflitos relativos à sua constitucionalidade ou à sua inconstitucionalidade. As correntes doutrinárias vêm se posicionando a favor de um e de outro lado, sem chegar a um consenso. Assim, esta monografia tem como objetivo geral analisar a (in)constitucionalidade da ação de regresso de acidentes de trabalho, tendo em vista o pagamento antecipado dos benefícios previdenciários aos acidentados pelas empresas, através do Seguro Acidente do Trabalho (SAT). A base do estudo é a pesquisa qualitativa, realizada por meio de método dedutivo. O procedimento técnico é bibliográfico e documental. A monografia inicia pelo estudo dos aspectos de contratos de trabalho e a responsabilização do empregador frente aos acidentes de trabalho. Em seguida, abordam-se as possibilidades de ações regressivas ajuizadas pelo Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS), no caso de acidentes de trabalho. Finalmente, verifica-se se a legislação autorizadora das ações de regresso, em caso de acidentes de trabalho, é contrária aos dispositivos constitucionais. Nesse sentido, conclui-se que o artigo 120 da Lei n. 8.213/91 é inconstitucional se confrontado com os artigos 7º, XXVIII, 195, caput, inciso I, “a” e art. 195, § 4º, todos da CF/88

Assessing the Effects of Tourist Provisioning on the Health of Wild Barbary Macaques in Morocco

Feeding wildlife is a very popular tourist activity, largely because it facilitates the close observation of animals in their natural habitat. Such provisioning may benefit animals by improving their survival and reproductive success, especially during periods of natural food shortage. However, provisioning by tourists may also have negative impacts on the health of the animals involved; to date such impacts are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effects of tourist provisioning on the health of wild adult Barbary macaques, Macaca sylvanus, in Morocco. We compared health measures between a heavily provisioned group and a group that received negligible food from tourists and, in the former group, we also assessed health measures in relation to the intensity of provisioning. We used a broad range of non-invasive health measures relating to birth rate and survival, disease and injury risk, body size and condition, and physiological stress. Our findings indicate that feeding by tourists may overall have negative impacts on the health of Barbary macaques, being linked in particular to larger body size, elevated stress levels and more alopecia. Finally, we propose a framework to help consider the potential costs and benefits of provisioning, which may facilitate future research and management decisions on whether—and how much—provisioning is acceptable

Máquina de vetores de suporte embarcada em hardware para classificação de sinais mioelétricos

Sinais mioelétricos são foco de muitos estudos que visam melhorar a capacidade motora de pessoas amputadas ao proporem próteses eletromecânicas cada vez mais inteligentes. Técnicas de aprendizado de máquina são aplicadas a estes sinais e sistemas que preveem movimentos com taxa de acerto acima de 90% para alguns sujeitos são encontrados na literatura. Para atingir estas altas taxas de acerto, porém, o algoritmo de aprendizado deve treinar por minutos ou horas, tempo que acompanha toda e qualquer calibração e que prejudica a popularização de sistemas realimentados nesta área. Com o objetivo de acelerar o processo de treinamento, este trabalho propõe embarcar o sistema em uma FPGA pois estudos mostram que tem capacidade de reduzir o tempo necessário para aprendizado, e sistemas em hardware são pouco explorados pela literatura especializada. O sistema proposto consiste no desenvolvimento de módulos em VHDL para o filtro digital, extração de características, treinamento de Máquinas de Vetores de Suporte, validação e classificação embarcados na FPGA. Ensaios com a base de dados Ninapro indicam taxas de acerto acima de 70% no aprendizado de 10 movimentos executados por alguns sujeitos não amputados após o curto período de tempo de 10 s de treinamento, e acima de 50% quando os movimentos são executados por alguns sujeitos amputados. Estas taxas são inferiores às obtidas em estudos feitos em computadores, onde os recursos de processamento e memória são abundantes, porém, possui as vantagens de portabilidade, possibilitar calibração rápida com treinamento em menos de 10 s, e estar preparado para sistemas realimentados. A velocidade de aprendizado do sistema é aproximadamente 1,76 épocas/ms.Myoelectric signals are the focus of many studies that aim to improve the motor capacity of amputees by proposing increasingly intelligent electromechanical prostheses. Machine learning techniques are applied to these signals and systems that predict movements with accuracy above 90% for some subjects are proposed. In order to achieve these high classification rates, however, the learning algorithm must train for minutes or hours, time that follows any and all calibration and makes feedback systems unfeasible. In order to accelerate the training process, this work proposes to embed the system in a FPGA since studies show that it has the capacity to reduce the time required for learning, and hardware systems are little explored in the literature. The proposed system consists of digital filtering, feature extraction, support vector machine training, validation and classification embedded in the FPGA. Experiments with the Ninapro database indicate accuracy rates above 70% in the classification of 10 movements performed by some non-amputated subjects after 10 s of training, and over 50% when performed by some amputees. These rates are lower than those obtained in computer studies, where processing and memory resources abound, but have the advantages of portability, enabling quick calibration with training in less than 10 s, and being prepared to feedback systems. The system learning speed is approximately 1.76 epochs/ms

Discurso multimodal da marca Nubank: primetido, (in)cumprido

No mundo tecnológico, marcas e públicos têm experienciado novas formas de interagir e algumas delas são totalmente virtuais. É neste contexto contemporâneo que surge a Nubank, nosso objeto de estudo, uma instituição financeira 100% digital. O objetivo desta pesquisa é verificar a (in)coerência do seu discurso multimodal da marca (DMM) e se justifica na medida em que o mesmo é responsável pela construção e consolidação da marca perante seus públicos. Para isso, utilizamos a pesquisa quanti-qualitativa (GIL, 2007) e os instrumentos de pesquisa foram pesquisa bibliográfica (STUMPF, 2006), pesquisa de internet (YAMAOKA, 2006), estudo de caso (DUARTE, 2006), análise de discurso (MANHÃES, 2006) e análise do discurso multimodal da marca (SILVESTRE et al., 2009). Como resultado, verificamos que há incoerência no DMM da Nubank e isso prejudica a sua imagem-conceito junto aos públicos de interesse

Isolamento e caracterização de Flavobacterium columnare de tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum).

O objetivo deste estudo foi de realizar o isolamento e a caracterização de Flavobacterium columnare de tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum) criado em tanques escavados na região de Rio Preto da Eva - AM