scholarly journals Infrasound and the avian navigational map

2000 ◽  
Vol 203 (7) ◽  
pp. 1103-1111 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.T. Hagstrum

Birds can navigate accurately over hundreds to thousands of kilometres, and this ability of homing pigeons is the basis for a worldwide sport. Compass senses orient avian flight, but how birds determine their location in order to select the correct homeward bearing (map sense) remains a mystery. Also mysterious are rare disruptions of pigeon races in which most birds are substantially delayed and large numbers are lost. Here, it is shown that in four recent pigeon races in Europe and the northeastern USA the birds encountered infrasonic (low-frequency acoustic) shock waves from the Concorde supersonic transport. An acoustic avian map is proposed that consists of infrasonic cues radiated from steep-sided topographic features; the source of these signals is microseisms continuously generated by interfering oceanic waves. Atmospheric processes affecting these infrasonic map cues can explain perplexing experimental results from pigeon releases.

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan T. Hagstrum

Birds can accurately navigate over hundreds to thousands of kilometres, and use celestial and magnetic compass senses to orient their flight. How birds determine their location in order to select the correct homeward bearing (map sense) remains controversial, and has been attributed to their olfactory or magnetic senses. Pigeons can hear infrasound down to 0·05 Hz, and an acoustic avian map is proposed consisting of infrasonic cues radiated from steep-sided topographic features. The source of these infrasonic signals is microseisms continuously generated by interfering oceanic waves. Atmospheric processes affecting the infrasonic map cues can explain perplexing experimental results from pigeon releases. Moreover, four recent disrupted pigeon races in Europe and the north-eastern USA intersected infrasonic shock waves from the Concorde supersonic transport. Having an acoustic map might also allow clock-shifted birds to test their homeward progress and select between their magnetic and solar compasses.


Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Xiaohua Huang ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
Keren Dai

Using the piezoelectric effect to harvest energy from surrounding vibrations is a promising alternative solution for powering small electronic devices such as wireless sensors and portable devices. A conventional piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) can only efficiently collect energy within a small range around the resonance frequency. To realize broadband vibration energy harvesting, the idea of multiple-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) PEH to realize multiple resonant frequencies within a certain range has been recently proposed and some preliminary research has validated its feasibility. Therefore, this paper proposed a multi-DOF wideband PEH based on the frequency interval shortening mechanism to realize five resonance frequencies close enough to each other. The PEH consists of five tip masses, two U-shaped cantilever beams and a straight beam, and tuning of the resonance frequencies is realized by specific parameter design. The electrical characteristics of the PEH are analyzed by simulation and experiment, validating that the PEH can effectively expand the operating bandwidth and collect vibration energy in the low frequency. Experimental results show that the PEH has five low-frequency resonant frequencies, which are 13, 15, 18, 21 and 24 Hz; under the action of 0.5 g acceleration, the maximum output power is 52.2, 49.4, 61.3, 39.2 and 32.1 μW, respectively. In view of the difference between the simulation and the experimental results, this paper conducted an error analysis and revealed that the material parameters and parasitic capacitance are important factors that affect the simulation results. Based on the analysis, the simulation is improved for better agreement with experiments.


1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 1449-1457
Author(s):  
H. Klingenberg ◽  
F. Sardei ◽  
W. Zimmermann

Abstract In continuation of the work on interaction between shock waves and magnetic fields 1,2 the experiments reported here measured the atomic and electron densities in the interaction region by means of an interferometric and a spectroscopic method. The transient atomic density was also calculated using a one-dimensional theory based on the work of Johnson3 , but modified to give an improved physical model. The experimental results were compared with the theoretical predictions.


Author(s):  
Yanji Chen ◽  
Mieczyslaw M. Kokar ◽  
Jakub J. Moskal

AbstractThis paper describes a program—SPARQL Query Generator (SQG)—which takes as input an OWL ontology, a set of object descriptions in terms of this ontology and an OWL class as the context, and generates relatively large numbers of queries about various types of descriptions of objects expressed in RDF/OWL. The intent is to use SQG in evaluating data representation and retrieval systems from the perspective of OWL semantics coverage. While there are many benchmarks for assessing the efficiency of data retrieval systems, none of the existing solutions for SPARQL query generation focus on the coverage of the OWL semantics. Some are not scalable since manual work is needed for the generation process; some do not consider (or totally ignore) the OWL semantics in the ontology/instance data or rely on large numbers of real queries/datasets that are not readily available in our domain of interest. Our experimental results show that SQG performs reasonably well with generating large numbers of queries and guarantees a good coverage of OWL axioms included in the generated queries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Igra ◽  
Ozer Igra ◽  
Lazhar Houas ◽  
Georges Jourdan

Simulations of experimental results appearing in Jourdan et al. (2007, “Drag Coefficient of a Sphere in a Non-Stationary Flow: New Results,”Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A, 463, pp. 3323–3345) regarding acceleration of a sphere by the postshock flow were conducted in order to find the contribution of the various parameters affecting the sphere drag force. Based on the good agreement found between present simulations and experimental findings, it is concluded that the proposed simulation scheme could safely be used for evaluating the sphere’s motion in the postshock flow.


2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.-D. Jan ◽  
C.-J. Chang ◽  
J.-S. Lai ◽  
W.-D. Guo

AbstractThis paper presents the experimental results of the characteristics of hydraulic shock waves in an inclined chute contraction with consideration of the effects of sidewall deflection angle φ, bottom inclination angle θ and approach Froude number Fr0. Seventeen runs of laboratory experiments were conducted in the range of 27.45° ≤φ ≤ 40.17°, 6.22° ≤ θ ≤ 25.38° and 1.04 ≤ Fr0 ≤ 3.51. Based on the experimental data, three empirical dimensionless relations for the shock angle, maximum shockwave height, and corresponding position of maximum shockwave were obtained by regression analyses, respectively. These empirical relations would be useful for hydraulic engineers in designing chute contraction structures.


Genetics ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 577-589
Author(s):  
Wyatt W Anderson ◽  
Celeste J Brown

ABSTRACT Recent work has called into question the reality of the rare male mating advantage, pointing out that it could be a statistical artifact of marking flies for behavioral observation or of experimental bias in collecting males. We designed an experiment to test for rare male mating advantage that avoids these sources of bias. Large numbers of males of three Drosophila pseudoobscura karyotypes were allowed to mate with females of one karyotype in population cages. The females were then isolated before multiple mating occurred and their progeny used to diagnose the males that mated them. Populations were studied at five sets of male karyotypic frequencies. The mating success of the male homokaryotypes ST/ST and CH/CH, relative to that of the heterokaryotype ST/CH, was frequency dependent. Both ST/ST and CH/CH males displayed a statistically significant mating advantage at low frequency by comparision with their mating success in the midrange of karyotypic frequencies. Both male homokaryotypes also showed a significantly greater mating success at high homokaryotypic frequency than at intermediate frequencies, which is the same as saying that the heterokaryotype not only failed to show a rare male advantage but actually suffered a mating disadvantage at low frequency. We conclude that rare male mating advantage is not always an experimental or methodological artifact but does occur in laboratory populations of D. pseudoobscura. It may occur for some genotypes and not for others, however, and it may be only one of several forms of frequency-dependent mating behavior operating in a population.


Author(s):  
Satenik Harutyunyan ◽  
Davresh Hasanyan

A non-linear theoretical model including bending and longitudinal vibration effects was developed for predicting the magneto electric (ME) effects in a laminate bar composite structure consisting of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric multi-layers. If the magnitude of the applied field increases, the deflection rapidly increases and the difference between experimental results and linear predictions becomes large. However, the nonlinear predictions based on the present model well agree with the experimental results within a wide range of applied electric field. The results of the analysis are believed to be useful for materials selection and actuator structure design of actuator in actuator fabrication. It is shown that the problem for bars of symmetrical structure is not divided into a plane problem and a bending problem. A way of simplifying the solution of the problem is found by an asymptotic method. After solving the problem for a laminated bar, formula that enable one to change from one-dimensional required quantities to three dimensional quantities are obtained. The derived analytical expression for ME coefficients depend on vibration frequency and other geometrical and physical parameters of laminated composites. Parametric studies are presented to evaluate the influences of material properties and geometries on strain distribution and the ME coefficient. Analytical expressions indicate that the vibration frequency strongly influences the strain distribution in the laminates, and that these effects strongly influence the ME coefficients. It is shown that for certain values of vibration frequency (resonance frequency), the ME coefficient becomes infinity; as a particular case, low frequency ME coefficient were derived as well.


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