The night-time temporal window of locomotor activity in the Namib Desert long-distance wandering spider, Leucorchestris arenicola

Even though being active exclusively after sunset, the male Leucorchestris arenicola spiders are able to return to their point of departure by following bee-line routes of up to several hundreds of meters in length. While performing this kind of long-distance path integration they must rely on external cues to adjust for navigational errors. Many external cues which could be used by the spiders change dramatically or disappear altogether in the transition period from day to night. Hence, it is therefore imperative to know exactly when after sunset the spiders navigate in order to find out how they do it. To explore this question, we monitored their locomotor activity with data loggers equipped with infrared beam sensors. Our results show that the male spiders are most active in the period between the end and the beginning of the astronomical twilight period. Moreover, they prefer the moonless, i.e. darkest times at night. Hence, we conclude that the males are truly—and extremely—nocturnal. We further show that they are able to navigate under the very dim light conditions prevailing on moonless nights, and thus do not have to rely on the moon or on moon-related patterns of polarised light as potential compass cue

Use of local cues in the night-time navigation of the wandering desert spider Leucorchestris arenicola (Araneae, Sparassidae)

Adult male Leucorchestris arenicola can walk round-trips of several tens of meters in search of females. Most excursions end with the spiders returning to their burrow. For small animals homing over distances of several meters is theoretically impossible without the aid of external cues. It was investigated, whether the spiders use local cues or they rely solely on global cues. Individually marked male spiders were captured during their excursions and displaced several meters inside an opaque box. Ten out of twelve displaced spiders returned to their burrows. This shows that the male L. arenicola are using local cues during their homing, as the comparatively small displacement distances could not be detected by means of global, e.g. celestial cues. In order to test whether the spiders could be using olfactory guidance, the burrows were displaced by 2m while the spiders were out on their journeys. In 12 out of 15 experiments, the spiders did not find their burrows. These results show that the burrows do not function as olfactory beacons for the homing spider

Risk management practices in the main industries of German small to medium-sized enterprises

The business management literature has largely neglected the theme of risk management for SMEs. So the aim of this research was to explore the current state of risk management in German SMEs and to reveal the problems which firms have with implementing a risk management system. Risk management is a relatively new discipline. Thus until now no general standard has been developed what to understand by a holistic risk management. Based on an extensive literature analysis, this study - besides risk management in the stricter sense - also sees the following components as essential for a holistic risk management: business planning and modern instruments of performance measurement. The present investigation places a special focus on these subsystems. Because of lacking empirical data a nationwide postal questionnaire has been chosen to obtain a broad picture of current risk management practices in German SMEs. A validation and further deepening of the results has been carried out by a larger number of research interviews. Derived from a comprehensive analysis of the questionnaire and the interview results, a scoring approacht o assessth e risk managements ophisticationo f SMEs has been developed. The approach does not, as usual, evaluate one single scoring figure. Insteadi t allows a differentiated assessmenbt y evaluating separates coring figures for each component of a holistic risk management system. The scoring approach presented is very transparent and thus can easily be adapted for similar research problems of risk management. Based on the scoring approach, this study introduces a new typology of risk management practices, derived from the empirical findings. It extracts three types of firms' risk management practices: reactors, defender/prospectors and analysers. The typology draws on the well-established approach of Miles and Snow who developed their types for classifying business organizations. The present study develops the Miles and Snow typology and makes it applicable for the purpose of risk management practices. Each of the three risk management types is described by its determinants with respect to the components of a holistic risk management. Then recommendations are formulated which actions a firm of the respective type should take to improve its risk managementt,h us contributing to the firm's further positive developmentEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Erfolgreiches Risikomanagement im Mittelstand

Für mittelständische Unternehmen ist ein funktionierendesRisikomanagement unerlässlich: Es zähltzu den wichtigen Kriterien im Ratingverfahren derBanken und ist somit ein entscheidender Faktor fürdie Gewährung von Krediten.Thomas Henschel stellt Ihnen leicht verständlicheinen Ansatz zur Bewertung von Risikomanagementsystemenspeziell im Mittelstand vor. Sieerfahren auf dieser Basis,• welche Risikotypen im Mittelstandzu beachten sind,• wie Sie ohne großen Ressourcenaufwandein Risikomanagementsystem imUnternehmen aufbauen können,• welche rechtlichen Faktoren Sie beachtenmüssen – Basel II, ISO 31 000 und mehr,• anhand welcher Kennzahlen das Risikomanagementin KMU bewertet wird

Risk Management Practices of SMEs. Evaluating and Implementing Effective Risk Management Systems

For SMEs, the establishment of a risk management system is essential to their survivial, since it affects their ability to continue to receive credit from banks. When rating a SME, the lending bank will also assess the proper implementation of a risk management system. Thomas Henschel presents a scoring approach, which allows the evaluation of risk management in businesses and also their system of planning and corporate governance. This book provides you precise recommendations for the implementation of an effective risk management in SMEs

Report about the collaboration between UITS/Research Technologies at Indiana University and the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (2011-2012)

This report lists the activities and outcomes for July 2011-June 2012 of the collaboration between Research Technologies, a division of University Information Technology Services at Indiana University (IU), and the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at Technische Universität Dresden.This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0910812 to Indiana University for "FutureGrid: An Experimental, High-Performance Grid Test-bed." Partners in the FutureGrid project include San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, University of Texas at Austin, Purdue University, University of Virginia, and T-U Dresden. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF

Comparison of Generality Based Algorithm Variants for Automatic Taxonomy Generation

We compare a family of algorithms for the automatic generation of taxonomies by adapting the Heymannalgorithm in various ways. The core algorithm determines the generality of terms and iteratively inserts them in a growing taxonomy. Variants of the algorithm are created by altering the way and the frequency, generality of terms is calculated. We analyse the performance and the complexity of the variants combined with a systematic threshold evaluation on a set of seven manually created benchmark sets. As a result, betweenness centrality calculated on unweighted similarity graphs often performs best but requires threshold fine-tuning and is computationally more expensive than closeness centrality. Finally, we show how an entropy-based filter can lead to more precise taxonomies

Report about the collaboration between UITS/Research Technologies at Indiana University and the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

This report lists the activities and outcomes of the collaboration between Research Technologies, a division of University Information Technology Services at Indiana University (IU), and the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at Technische Universität Dresden.This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0910812 to Indiana University for "FutureGrid: An Experimental, High-Performance Grid Test-bed." Partners in the FutureGrid project include San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, University of Texas at Austin, Purdue University, University of Virginia, and T-U Dresden. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF

ABI Sustaining: The National Center for Genome Analysis Support 2019 Annual Report

National Science Foundation DBI-175990