The Fractal Geometry of Life

The goal of this design project was to bridge the intentions of mathematical theory and wearable art design by experimenting with the mergence of fractal art theory and the aesthetic of the artwork of Piet Mondrian to create an interesting, complex, and aesthetically pleasing visual form of wearable art. The garment patterns were created using Lectra Modaris and exported into DXF format for motif arrangement in Adobe Illustrator. The designers utilized laser cutting technology to represent the effects of the fractal geometric art and the concept from Mondrian’s painting. The primary colors inspired by the Mondrian’s painting were filled in a particular block on the dress using round glass seed beads. This wearable art design contributes an innovative design process that relies on computer software to give rise to the chaos and regularity, the fractal dimension and infinity, which is analogous to the fractal art design process. Keywords: Fractal art, golden ratio, laser cutting, hand beadin

Standard metabolic rate predicts growth trajectory of juvenile Chinese crucian carp (Carassius auratus) under changing food availability

Phenotypic traits vary greatly within populations and can have a significant influence on aspects of performance. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of individual variation in standard metabolic rate (SMR) on growth rate and tolerance to food-deprivation in juvenile crucian carp (Carassius auratus) under varying levels of food availability. To address this issue, 19 high and 16 low SMR (individuals were randomly assigned to a satiation diet for 3 weeks, whereas another 20 high and 16 low SMR individuals were assigned to a restricted diet (approximately 50% of satiation) for the same period. Then, all fish were completely food-deprived for another 3 weeks. High SMR individuals showed a higher growth rate when fed to satiation, but this advantage of SMR did not exist in food-restricted fish. This result was related to improved feeding efficiency with decreased food intake in low SMR individuals, due to their low food processing capacity and maintenance costs. High SMR individuals experienced more mass loss during food-deprivation as compared to low SMR individuals. Our results here illustrate context-dependent costs and benefits of intraspecific variation in SMR whereby high SMR individuals show increased growth performance under high food availability but had a cost under stressful environments (i.e., food shortage)

mer-Triaqua­(1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)(sulfato-κO)magnesium(II)

In the title compound, [Mg(SO4)(C12H8N2)(H2O)3], the MgII centre exhibits a slightly distorted octa­hedral coordination environment defined by two N atoms from a 1,10-phenanthroline mol­ecule, one O atom from a sulfate dianion and three meridionally arranged O atoms from coordinated water mol­ecules. The crystal structure involves intra- and intermolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds