1,825 research outputs found
Introduced Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in Lake Huron: do they spawn at the right time?
Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), following their introduction to the Great Lakes, have successfully colonized many tributaries. Under the hypothesis that colonization success is facilitated by intrinsic factors (i.e., preadaptation), I predicted that patterns of reproductive timing in an introduced population would show similarities with those in their native range. To test this prediction, attributes of reproductive timing were characterized in Chinook salmon from the Sydenham River, Ontario. In their native range, female Chinook salmon exhibit a seasonal decline in reproductive lifespan, a decline in fat stores, low egg retention at death (\u3c 0.5%), and spawning at temperatures below 12.8°C. In contrast, Sydenham River Chinook salmon showed no seasonal decline in reproductive lifespan or fat stores and nineteen of twenty females had egg retention greater or equal to 0.5%. Also, many individuals (30%) spawned when water temperatures exceeded 12.8°C. Thus, individuals do not appear to be pre-adapted in this system
Video-Assisted Thoracoscopy in the Management of Primary and Secondary Pneumothorax
The management of primary and secondary spontaneous pneumothorax can have many variations depending on the surgeons and their expertise of practice. The end goal is to stop the recurrence. The history of treatment, clinical indications for surgery, and preoperative and postoperative decision-making for intervention are summarized. Surgical intervention plays an important role in the management of recurrent pneumothorax and complex initial pneumothorax. Over the years the surgical techniques have evolved, and currently, video-assisted thoracoscopic techniques are frequently used in the management. In this concise report, we attempt to analyze the surgical techniques currently in use and their outcomes. Furthermore, we attempt to integrate future innovations in the management of this common disorder
Informed perspectives on human annotation using neural signals
In this work we explore how neurophysiological correlates related to attention and perception can be used to better understand the image-annotation task. We explore the nature of the highly variable labelling data often seen across annotators. Our results indicate potential issues with regard to âhow wellâ a person manually annotates images and variability across annotators. We propose such issues arise in part as a result of subjectively interpretable instructions that may fail to elicit similar labelling behaviours and decision thresholds across participants. We find instances where an individualâs annotations differ from a group consensus, even though their EEG (Electroencephalography) signals indicate in fact they were likely in consensus with the group. We offer a new perspective on how EEG can be incorporated in an annotation task to reveal information not readily captured using manual annotations alone. As crowd-sourcing resources become more readily available for annotation tasks one can reconsider the quality of such annotations. Furthermore, with the availability of consumer EEG hardware, we speculate that we are approaching a point where it may be feasible to better harness an annotators time and decisions by examining neural responses as part of the process. In this regard, we examine strategies to deal with inter-annotator sources of noise and correlation that can be used to understand the relationship between annotators at a neural level
Local dimension and finite time prediction in spatiotemporal chaotic systems
We show how a recently introduced statistics [Patil et al, Phys. Rev. Lett.
81 5878 (2001)] provides a direct relationship between dimension and
predictability in spatiotemporal chaotic systems. Regions of low dimension are
identified as having high predictability and vice-versa. This conclusion is
reached by using methods from dynamical systems theory and Bayesian modelling.
We emphasize in this work the consequences for short time forecasting and
examine the relevance for factor analysis. Although we concentrate on coupled
map lattices and coupled nonlinear oscillators for convenience, any other
spatially distributed system could be used instead, such as turbulent fluid
flows.Comment: 5 pagers, 7 EPS figure
Collapse of ringlike structures in 2DEGs under tilted magnetic fields
In the quantum Hall regime, the longitudinal resistivity plotted
as a density--magnetic-field () diagram displays ringlike structures
due to the crossings of two sets of spin split Landau levels from different
subbands [e.g., Zhang \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{95}, 216801
(2005)]. For tilted magnetic fields, some of these ringlike structures "shrink"
as the tilt angle is increased and fully collapse at . Here we theoretically investigate the topology of these structures
via a non-interacting model for the 2DEG. We account for the inter Landau-level
coupling induced by the tilted magnetic field via perturbation theory. This
coupling results in anti-crossings of Landau levels with parallel spins. With
the new energy spectrum, we calculate the corresponding diagram of
the density of states (DOS) near the Fermi level. We argue that the DOS
displays the same topology as in the diagram. For the
ring with filling factor , we find that the anti-crossings make it
shrink for increasing tilt angles and collapse at a large enough angle. Using
effective parameters to fit the data, we find a collapsing
angle . Despite this factor-of-two discrepancy with
the experimental data, our model captures the essential mechanism underlying
the ring collapse.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures; Proceedings of the PASPS V Conference Held in
August 2008 in Foz do Igua\c{c}u, Brazi
Hyperfine interaction and magnetoresistance in organic semiconductors
We explore the possibility that hyperfine interaction causes the recently
discovered organic magnetoresistance (OMAR) effect. Our study employs both
experiment and theoretical modelling. An excitonic pair mechanism model based
on hyperfine interaction, previously suggested by others to explain magnetic
field effects in organics, is examined. Whereas this model can explain a few
key aspects of the experimental data, we, however, uncover several fundamental
contradictions as well. By varying the injection efficiency for minority
carriers in the devices, we show experimentally that OMAR is only weakly
dependent on the ratio between excitons formed and carriers injected, likely
excluding any excitonic effect as the origin of OMAR.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl
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