Digging with ‘hands’: observations of food capture in the flying gurnard Dactylopterus volitans (Linnaeus, 1758)

ABSTRACT

Videofilms of a foraging flying gurnard (Dactylopterus volitans) were collected at Itaipu, Niterói, RJ, Brazil. Analysis revealed details of the use of anterior parts of the pectoral fins which act as digging ‘hands’ to access infaunal prey items that are subsequently captured by oral suction feeding. Each pectoral fin has two distinct sections articulated separately on the pectoral girdle. The digging ‘anterior pectoral fin’ mainly consists of segmented and flexible fin rays but has an anterior robust unsegmented ray that provides an edge to the ‘hand’, allowing penetration of the substratum. The huge ‘posterior pectoral fins’ are supported by unsegmented rays. Most digging episodes involved one ‘hand’ and consisted of 1–7 cycles of movement with frequencies 1.15–3.74 cycles s^?1. During a cycle, the ‘hand’ is moved forwards and medially above the substratum, then is twisted medially and simultaneously depressed so that the anterior unsegmented ray impacts and enters the substratum. The hand is then drawn backwards and laterally to disturb the substratum. To prevent upward pitching of the head during digging, the ‘posterior pectoral fins’ are both moved anteriorly and laterally to shift the centre of gravity forwards while the caudal and ?second dorsal fins continue to provide propulsive force.     

Modeling eBay price using stochastic differential equations

Online auctions have become increasingly popular in recent years. There is a growing body of research on this topic, whereas modeling online auction price curves constitutes one of the most interesting problems. Most research treats price curves as deterministic functions, which ignores the random effects of external and internal factors. To account for the randomness, a more realistic model using stochastic differential equations is proposed in this paper. The online auction price is modeled by a stochastic differential equation in which the deterministic part is equivalent to the second‐order differential equation model proposed in Wang et al. (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2008, 103, 1100–1118). The model also includes a component representing the measurement errors. Explicit expressions for the likelihood function are also obtained, from which statistical inference can be conducted. Forecast accuracy of the proposed model is compared with the ODE (ordinary differential equation) approach. Simulation results show that the proposed model performs better.     

封闭式运动减肥对肥胖青少年体质健康的影响

对44名14～19岁肥胖青少年进行6周的封闭式饮食控制及运动,测定实验对象的身体形态、身体机能、身体素质和血液健康等指标.通过数理统计方法对实验所测得的数据进行分析.结果表明:肥胖青少年的脂肪量、体质量、体脂率都有明显的下降(P0.05);肺活量逐渐上升,身体素质指标(耐力、柔韧、50 m跑)与血液健康指标(血脂TC、甘油三酯TG、空腔胰岛素FINS)都呈非常明显改善(P0.01).封闭式运动减肥对青少年肥胖者体质健康具有良好的效能表现.     

基于交通信号灯信息的混合动力汽车节能预测控制方法

针对传统混合动力汽车控制方法不考虑已知道路交通信号灯信息对车辆能量管理影响的问题,提出了基于交通信号灯信息的混合动力汽车节能预测控制智能优化策略。通过建立混合动力汽车系统的简化模型,并采用连续广义最小残量方法求解模型预测控制问题。运用MATLAB/Simulink进行仿真,仿真结果验证了交通信号灯信息模型的有效性,以及所设计的模型预测控制算法大幅度提高混合动力汽车的燃油经济性的能力和实时控制性能。研究结果表明所提出的控制策略可以实现车辆行驶轨迹的优化控制,显著提高了车辆的燃油经济性,并满足系统的实时最优控制要求。     

网络时代隐私权的法律保护

对隐私权的概念进行了界定，提出了网络时代隐私权的侵权方式呈现出传统侵权方式与网络侵权方式并存的特点，并在分析我国隐私权法律保护现状的基础上，对网络时代隐私权法律保护的前景作了探讨，即赋予隐私权以独立性、在未来民法典中对隐私权的法律保护做一般性规定、在某些特别领域对隐私权的法律保护做具体性规定以及从国际私法的角度对隐私权加以保护．     

网络:校园思想政治工作的新空间与新挑战

介绍了在计算机、互联网为代表的第三次产业革命冲击下 ,网络带给校园思想政治工作的机遇与挑战 ,提出了在网络环境下从事该项工作的策略及建议     

化工测量中的干扰分析及抗干扰方法

分析了化工测量中的干扰问题，并结合多年来的工作实践，提出了一些抗干扰的方法。     

网络计划最低费用日程的一种新解法

根据网络计划的特点,在求解其最低费用日程时,引入最小割的概念,从而改进了该问题的求解方法。文中给出了解决问题的算法流程,并附有算例.此法运用较简便,且易于计算机计算,自动化水平高,因而便于有关人员采用.     

理性看待特许经营

目前，国内许多企业为了在较短的时间内迅速扩大规模，纷纷采取特许经营模式，有些已经取得了较大的进展，但其中也不乏盲目跟刚才是，文章从国内特许经营存在的问题入手，指出了特许经营中的陷阱及对策。     

嫖宿幼女罪构成要件探讨

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