Bottlenose dolphins modify behavior to reduce metabolic effect of tag attachment

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of The Company of Biologists for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Experimental Biology 217 (2014): 4229-4236, doi:10.1242/​jeb.108225.Attaching bio-telemetry or -logging devices (‘tags’) to marine animals for research and monitoring adds drag to streamlined bodies, thus affecting posture, swimming gaits and energy balance. These costs have never been measured in free-swimming cetaceans. To examine the effect of drag from a tag on metabolic rate, cost of transport and swimming behavior, four captive male dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were trained to swim a set course, either non-tagged (n=7) or fitted with a tag (DTAG2; n=12), and surface exclusively in a flow-through respirometer in which oxygen consumption (Graphic) and carbon dioxide production (Graphic; ml kg−1 min−1) rates were measured and respiratory exchange ratio (Graphic/Graphic) was calculated. Tags did not significantly affect individual mass-specific oxygen consumption, physical activity ratios (exercise Graphic/resting Graphic), total or net cost of transport (COT; J m−1 kg−1) or locomotor costs during swimming or two-minute recovery phases. However, individuals swam significantly slower when tagged (by ~11%; mean ± s.d., 3.31±0.35 m s−1) than when non-tagged (3.73±0.41 m s−1). A combined theoretical and computational fluid dynamics model estimating drag forces and power exertion during swimming suggests that drag loading and energy consumption are reduced at lower swimming speeds. Bottlenose dolphins in the specific swimming task in this experiment slowed to the point where the tag yielded no increases in drag or power, while showing no difference in metabolic parameters when instrumented with a DTAG2. These results, and our observations, suggest that animals modify their behavior to maintain metabolic output and energy expenditure when faced with tag-induced drag.This project was funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program [National Science Foundation via the Office of Naval Research, N00014-11-1-0113]. J.v.d.H. was supported by a Postgraduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.2015-10-1

To what distances do we know the confining potential?

We argue that asymptotically linear static potential is built in into the common procedure of extracting it from lattice Wilson loop measurements. To illustrate the point, we extract the potential by the standard lattice method in a model vacuum made of instantons. A beautiful infinitely rising linear potential is obtained in the case where the true potential is actually flattening. We argue that the flux tube formation might be also an artifact of the lattice procedure and not necessarily a measured physical effect. We conclude that at present the rising potential is known for sure up to no more than about 0.7 fm. It may explain why no screening has been clearly observed so far for adjoint sources and for fundamental sources but with dynamical fermions. Finally, we speculate on how confinement could be achieved even if the static potential in the pure glue theory is not infinitely rising.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures. Additional arguments presented, a new figure and references adde

Exotic baryon multiplets at large number of colours

We generalize the usual octet, decuplet and exotic antidecuplet and higher baryon multiplets to any number of colours Nc. We show that the multiplets fall into a sequence of bands with O(1/Nc) splittings inside the band and O(1)splittings between the bands characterized by "exoticness", that is the number of extra quark-antiquark pairs needed to compose the multiplet. Each time one adds a pair the baryon mass is increased by the same constant which can be interpreted as a mass of a quark-antiquark pair. At the same time, we prove that masses of exotic rotational multiplets are reliably determined at large Nc from collective quantization of chiral solitons.Comment: 13 p., 5 figs. New section and references adde

Stable ring vortex solitons in Bessel optical lattices

Stable ring vortex solitons, featuring a bright-shape, appear to be very rare in nature. However, here we show that they exist and can be made dynamically stable in defocusing cubic nonlinear media with an imprinted Bessel optical lattice. We find the families of vortex lattice solitons and reveal their salient properties, including the conditions required for their stability. We show that the higher the soliton topological charge, the deeper the lattice modulation necessary for stabilization.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Bandwidth-controlled Mott transition in κ−(BEDT−TTF)2Cu[N(CN)2]BrxCl1−x\kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2 Cu [N(CN)_2] Br_x Cl_{1-x} I. Optical studies of localized charge excitations

Infrared reflection measurements of the half-filled two-dimensional organic conductors $\kappa$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu[N(CN)$_{2}$]Br$_{x}$Cl$_{1-x}$ were performed as a function of temperature ($5 {\rm K}<T<300$ K) and Br-substitution ($x=0$, 40%, 73%, 85%, and 90%) in order to study the metal-insulator transition. We can distinguish absorption processes due to itinerant and localized charge carriers. The broad mid-infrared absorption has two contributions: transitions between the two Hubbard bands and intradimer excitations from the charges localized on the (BEDT-TTF)$_2$ dimer. Since the latter couple to intramolecular vibrations of BEDT-TTF, the analysis of both electronic and vibrational features provides a tool to disentangle these contributions and to follow their temperature and electronic-correlations dependence. Calculations based on the cluster model support our interpretation.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure

An improvement of the Berry--Esseen inequality with applications to Poisson and mixed Poisson random sums

By a modification of the method that was applied in (Korolev and Shevtsova, 2009), here the inequalities $$\rho(F_n,\Phi)\le\frac{0.335789(\beta^3+0.425)}{\sqrt{n}}$$ and $$\rho(F_n,\Phi)\le \frac{0.3051(\beta^3+1)}{\sqrt{n}}$$ are proved for the uniform distance $\rho(F_n,\Phi)$ between the standard normal distribution function $\Phi$ and the distribution function $F_n$ of the normalized sum of an arbitrary number $n\ge1$ of independent identically distributed random variables with zero mean, unit variance and finite third absolute moment $\beta^3$. The first of these inequalities sharpens the best known version of the classical Berry--Esseen inequality since $0.335789(\beta^3+0.425)\le0.335789(1+0.425)\beta^3<0.4785\beta^3$ by virtue of the condition $\beta^3\ge1$, and 0.4785 is the best known upper estimate of the absolute constant in the classical Berry--Esseen inequality. The second inequality is applied to lowering the upper estimate of the absolute constant in the analog of the Berry--Esseen inequality for Poisson random sums to 0.3051 which is strictly less than the least possible value of the absolute constant in the classical Berry--Esseen inequality. As a corollary, the estimates of the rate of convergence in limit theorems for compound mixed Poisson distributions are refined.Comment: 33 page

Application of the Large-N_c limit to a Chiral Lagrangian with Resonances

It is shown that the implementation of the Large--$N_c$ approximation helps to get insight into the structure of, in principle, any QCD-like theory. As an example, we will compute the NLO corrections to $L_{10}$ in the chiral limit with a Lagrangian with Resonances.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at the International School of Subnuclear Physics (Erice 2002). To be published in the Proceeding

Exotic Anti-Decuplet of Baryons: Prediction from Chiral Solitons

We predict an exotic Z^+ baryon (having spin 1/2, isospin 0 and strangeness +1) with a relatively low mass of about 1530 MeV and total width of less than 15 MeV. It seems that this region of masses has avoided thorough searches in the past.Comment: Revised version, to appear in Z. fuer Phys. A. The importance of 1/Nc corrections to antidecuplet widths is demonstrated. 21 pages, 1 LaTeX figur