scholarly journals Food quality and conspicuousness shape improvements in olfactory discrimination by mice

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1847) ◽  
pp. 20162629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine J. Price ◽  
Peter B. Banks
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Value ◽  
Food Type ◽  
House Mice ◽  
Detection Analysis ◽  
Odour Discrimination ◽  
Signal Detection Analysis ◽  
Wild House Mice ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Prey Items ◽  
Better Than

How animals locate nutritious but camouflaged prey items with increasing accuracy is not well understood. Olfactory foraging is common in vertebrates and the nutritional desirability of food should influence the salience of odour cues. We used signal detection analysis to test the effect of nutritional value relative to the conspicuousness of food patches on rates of foraging improvement of wild house mice Mus musculus searching for buried food (preferred peanuts or non-preferred barley). Olfactory cues were arranged to make food patches conspicuous or difficult to distinguish using a novel form of olfactory camouflage. Regardless of food type or abundance, mice searching for conspicuous food patches performed significantly better than mice searching for camouflaged patches. However, food type influenced how mice responded to different levels of conspicuousness. Mice searching for peanuts improved by similar rates regardless of whether food was easy or hard to find, but mice searching for barley showed significant differences, improving rapidly when food was conspicuous but declining in accuracy when food was camouflaged. Our results demonstrate a fundamental tenet of olfactory foraging that nutritional desirability influences rates of improvement in odour discrimination, enabling nutritious but camouflaged prey to be located with increasing efficiency.

Bivariate Response Distributions in Visual Detection and Discrimination

1980 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 502-506
Author(s):  
Lynn A. Olzak
Keyword(s):  
Signal Detection ◽  
Visual Detection ◽  
Pattern Perception ◽  
Sensory Response ◽  
Correlated Noise ◽  
Alternative Response ◽  
Detection Model ◽  
Detection Analysis ◽  
Signal Detection Analysis ◽  
Better Than

Two patterns can sometimes be discriminated from one another better than they are detected. A Signal Detection analysis of the information used to perform these psychophysical judgments suggests that properties exist in the visual system which favor the ability to discriminate over the ability to detect. Two candidate properties are inhibition and/or correlated noise between tuned spatial frequency analyzers. The extent to which such processes occur is reflected by the parameters defining sensory response distributions in a Signal Detection model of pattern perception. A method by which these parameters can be estimated is described, and several alternative response spaces are discussed.

Female Preference and Variability Among t-Haplotypes in Wild House Mice

1994 ◽  
Vol 143 (5) ◽  
pp. 766-784 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Lenington ◽  
Carol B. Coopersmith ◽  
Mark Erhart
Keyword(s):  
Female Preference ◽  
House Mice ◽  
Wild House Mice

scholarly journals A SECOND GROUP OF SIMILAR LETHALS IN POPULATIONS OF WILD HOUSE MICE

Genetics ◽  
1959 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 795-802 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothea Bennett ◽  
L C Dunn ◽  
Susan Badenhausen
Keyword(s):  
House Mice ◽  
Wild House Mice

scholarly journals Six ultraviolet minutes for cleaner operating theatres

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
R Bosco ◽  
S Gambelli ◽  
V Urbano ◽  
G Cevenini ◽  
G Messina
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Operating Theatres ◽  
Cleaning Procedures ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Contamination Levels ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Final Cleaning

Abstract Background Sanitizing the operating theatres (OT) is important to minimize risk of post-operative infections. Disinfection procedures between one operation and another is less aggressive than final cleaning procedures, at the end of the day. Aim was assessing the difference of contamination: i) between different levels of disinfection; ii) before and after the use of a UVC Device (UVC-D). Methods Between December 2019/February 2020 a cross sectional study was conducted in OT in a real clinical context. 94 Petri dishes (PD) were used in 3 OT. Three different sanitation levels (SL1-3) were compared pre- and post-use of UVC-D: i) No cleaning after surgery (SL1); ii) after in-between cleaning (SL2); iii) after terminal cleaning (SL3). UVC-D was employed for 6 minutes, 3 minutes per bed side. PD were incubated at 36 °C and colony forming unit (CFU) counted at 48h. Descriptive statistic, Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests were performed to assess the contamination levels in total, pre/post use of UVC-D, and between different sanitation levels, respectively. Results In total we had a mean of 3.39 CFU/PD (C.I. 2.05 - 4.74) and a median of 1 CFU/PD (Min. 0 - Max. 39), after UVC-D use we had a mean of 2.20 CFU/PD (C.I. 0.69 - 5.09) and a median of 0 CFU/PD (Min. 0 - Max. 133). The UVC-D led to a significant reduction of CFU (p < 0.001). Without UVC-D we had a significant CFU drop (p < 0.05) between SL1 and SL3. Using UVC-D, we observed significant reductions of contamination (p < 0.05) between SL3 and SL1. Comparing SL1 (median 0) post UVC-D use vs SL2 pre UVC-D use (median 0.5), and SL2 post UVC-D use (median 0) vs SL3 pre UVC-D use (median 1) we had a significant reduction of contamination (p < 0.05). Conclusions UVC-D improved environmental contamination in any of the three sanitation levels. Furthermore, the use of UVC-D alone was better than in-between and terminal cleaning. Although these encouraging results, the cleaning procedures executed by dedicated staff has to be considered. Key messages UVC are efficient to decrease contamination in operating theatres regardless of sanitation levels. The additional use of UVC technology to standard cleaning procedures significantly improves sanitation levels.

scholarly journals Velody 2—Resilient High-Capacity MIDI Steganography for Organ and Harpsichord Music

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Eric Järpe ◽  
Mattias Weckstén
Keyword(s):  
Mean Absolute Error ◽  
Signal To Noise Ratio ◽  
High Capacity ◽  
Absolute Error ◽  
Music Technology ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
File Size ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Better Than

A new method for musical steganography for the MIDI format is presented. The MIDI standard is a user-friendly music technology protocol that is frequently deployed by composers of different levels of ambition. There is to the author’s knowledge no fully implemented and rigorously specified, publicly available method for MIDI steganography. The goal of this study, however, is to investigate how a novel MIDI steganography algorithm can be implemented by manipulation of the velocity attribute subject to restrictions of capacity and security. Many of today’s MIDI steganography methods—less rigorously described in the literature—fail to be resilient to steganalysis. Traces (such as artefacts in the MIDI code which would not occur by the mere generation of MIDI music: MIDI file size inflation, radical changes in mean absolute error or peak signal-to-noise ratio of certain kinds of MIDI events or even audible effects in the stego MIDI file) that could catch the eye of a scrutinizing steganalyst are side-effects of many current methods described in the literature. This steganalysis resilience is an imperative property of the steganography method. However, by restricting the carrier MIDI files to classical organ and harpsichord pieces, the problem of velocities following the mood of the music can be avoided. The proposed method, called Velody 2, is found to be on par with or better than the cutting edge alternative methods regarding capacity and inflation while still possessing a better resilience against steganalysis. An audibility test was conducted to check that there are no signs of audible traces in the stego MIDI files.

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