Pattern of Kirtland's warbler occurrence in relation to the landscape structure of its summer habitat in northern Lower Michigan

Studies of the endangered Kirtland's warbler in relation to landscape ecosystems were conducted from 1986–1988 on a large wildfire-burn surrounding Mack Lake in southeastern Oscoda County, Michigan. A landscape ecosystem approach was used to distinguish low- and high-elevation segments of the landscape, as well as 11 local ecosystem types. The ecosystems were distinguished by physiography, microclimate, soil, and vegetation. The early occurrence of the warblers was strongly related to landscape structure, i.e. , to the broad low- and high-elevation areas and the local ecosystem types within them. Territories of male warblers were observed in 5 of the 11 ecosystems. The five ecosystem types where warblers were observed were characterized by (1) a physiography of level or rolling terrain; (2) soil series of Grayling, Graycalm, Montcalm, or Rubicon; (3) uplands with relatively warm temperature during the breeding season; (4) vegetation dominated by low sweet blueberry, bearberry, wintergreen, northern pin oak, blue stem grasses, and hair cap moss; and (5) canopy of relatively tall, dense, and patchy jack pine and oak. Landscape structure appears to be an important factor affecting the occurrence of the warbler in its summer habitat in northern Lower Michigan.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43161/1/10980_2004_Article_BF00129700.pd

Bilinear Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition

International audienceIn this paper, we present a new statistical projection-based face recognition method, called Bilinear Discriminant Analysis (BDA). The proposed technique effectively combines two complementary versions of Two-Dimensional-Oriented Linear Discriminant Analysis (2DoLDA), namely Column-Oriented Linear Discriminant Analysis (CoLDA) and Row-Oriented Linear Discriminant Analysis (RoLDA). BDA relies on the maximization of a generalized bilinear projection-based Fisher criterion. A series of experiments was performed on various international face image databases in order to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of BDA to RoLDA and CoLDA. The experimental results indicate that BDA outperforms RoLDA, CoLDA and 2DPCA for face recognition, while leading to a significant dimensionality reduction

Avaliação de procedimentos na estimação de parâmetros genéticos em bovinos de corte Procedures evaluation in the estimates of genetic parameters of cattle

RESUMO - Estimativas de variâncias, covariâncias e herdabilidades (h²) de dados de pesos ao nascimento (y1), à desmama (y2), aos 12 (y3), 18 (y4) e 24 meses (y5) e circunferência escrotal aos 12 (y6) meses de idade foram obtidas de três amostras de dados de animais Canchim, machos e fêmeas, nascidos de 1961 a 1991, em São Carlos, SP. Foram utilizadas análises univariada, por meio do Método 3 de Henderson, Máxima Verossimilhança (ML), ML Restrita (REML), Método Iterativo Simples de Henderson (IHSM), Método da Estimação Quadrática Não-viesada de Variância Mínima (MIVQUEo) e procedimento GLM do SAS, e multivariada por IHSM, ML e REML, com e sem a inclusão da matriz de parentesco entre os animais. As estimativas de h² variaram de 0,33 a 0,34 (y1), 0,30 a 0,81 (y2), 0,28 a 0,68 (y3), 0,27 a 0,27 (y4), 0,40 a 0,40 (y5) e 0,40 a 0,40 (y6). Detectou-se afastamento da normalidade para quase todas as características e heterogeneidade de variâncias para os efeitos fixos de sexo, ano e época de nascimento, idade da vaca ao parto, geração do animal e efeito aleatório de touros. A transformação dos dados fornecendo escores normais como resposta foi a mais eficiente em aproximar os dados a uma distribuição normal. Métodos de estimação, análise univariada ou multivariada, amostragem e tipo de transformação de dados, nesta ordem, foram os que mais influenciaram as estimativas de h².<br>ABSTRACT - Estimates of variance, covariance and heritabilities (h²) for body weights at birth (y1), weaning (y2), 12 (y3), 18 (y4) and 24 (y5) months of age, and scrotal circumference at 12 months of age (y6) were obtained from three data sets of purebreed Canchim males and females, born from 1961 to 1969 in São Carlos, São Paulo State. The genetic parameters were obtained by means of univariate analysis by Henderson Method 3, Maximum Likelihood (ML), Restricted ML (REML), Iterative Henderson Simple Method, Minimum Variance Quadratic Unbiased Estimation (MIVQUEo) and GLM procedure of SAS, and multivariate analysis by IHSM, ML and REML, with and without the relation matrix of animals. The heritability estimates ranged from 0.33 to 0.34 (y1), 0.30 to 0.81 (y2), 0.28 to 0.68 (y3) 0.27 to 0.27 (y4), 0.40 to 0.40 (y5) and 0.40 to 0.40 (y6). No normality of data for almost all traits and heterogeneity of variance for fixed effects of gender, year and season of birth, age of dam at calving, animal generation and random effect of sire was detected. Data transformation into normal scores provided the most efficient way to bring data near to a normal distribution. Estimation methods, type of analysis (univariate or multivariate analysis), sampling and type of transformation procedure, in this order, were the factors that influenced the most the heritability estimates