scholarly journals FORMATION OF LOCAL SETTLEMENTS BY FOUNDERS OF THE POLYSTES WASPS OF DIFFERENT MORPHOTYPES

Author(s):  
L.Yu. Rusina ◽  
◽  
A.Yu. Kosyakova ◽  

In 2003–2013 and in 2019, an analysis of the relationship between phenotypic variability and the behavior of overwintered foundresses of 4 Palearctic Polistes wasp species from 12 local settlements was performed. It is shown that the structure and organization of melanin patterns of foundresses and their behavior in spring depend on the biocenotic environment of the colonies in which they were raised the previous summer, as well as on the weather conditions of wintering and nesting period. The system of polymorphism in primitive eusocial wasps, which is involved in providing population adaptations, in particular, nesting strategies, is discussed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1566
Author(s):  
Rong-Chang Jou ◽  
Ming-Che Chao

Introduction—Medical emergency vehicles help patients get to the hospital quickly. However, there were more and more ambulance crashes on the road in Taiwan during the last decade. This study investigated the characteristics of medical emergency vehicle crashes in Taiwan from January 2003 to December 2016. Methods—The ordered logit (OL) model, multinominal logit (MNL) model, and partial proportional odds (PPO) model were applied to investigate the relationship between the severity of ambulance crash injuries and its risk factors. Results—We found the various factors have different effects on the overall severity of ambulance crashes, such as ambulance drivers’ characteristics and road and weather conditions. When another car was involved in ambulance crashes, there was a disproportionate effect on the different overall severity, as found by the PPO model. Conclusions—The results showed that male ambulance drivers and car drivers who failed to yield to an ambulance had a higher risk of severe injury from ambulance crashes. Ambulance crashes are an emerging issue and need further policies and public education regarding Taiwan’s ambulance transportation safety.


Author(s):  
Natalie Rose ◽  
Les Dolega

AbstractThe weather is considered as an influential factor on consumer purchasing behaviours and plays a significant role in many aspects of retail sector decision making. As a result, better understanding of the magnitude and nature of the influence of variable UK weather conditions can be beneficial to many retailers and other stakeholders. This study addresses the dearth of research in this area by quantifying the relationship between different weather conditions and trading outcomes. By employing comprehensive daily sales data for a major high street retailer with over 2000 stores across England and adopting a random forest methodology, the study quantifies the influence of various weather conditions on daily retail sales. Results indicate that weather impact is greatest in the summer and spring months and that wind is consistently found to be the most influential weather condition. The top five most weather-dependent categories cover a range of different product types, with health foods emerging as the most susceptible to the weather. Also, sales from out-of-town stores show a far more complex relationship with the weather than those from traditional high street stores with the regions London and the South East experiencing the greatest levels of influence. Various implications of these findings for retail stakeholders are discussed and the scope for further research outlined.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 17939-17986 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Schaap ◽  
A. Apituley ◽  
R. M. A. Timmermans ◽  
R. B. A. Koelemeijer ◽  
G. de Leeuw

Abstract. To acquire daily estimates of PM2.5 distributions based on satellite data one depends critically on an established relation between AOD and ground level PM2.5. In this study we aimed to experimentally establish the AOD-PM2.5 relationship for the Netherlands. For that purpose an experiment was set-up at the AERONET site Cabauw. The average PM2.5 concentration during this ten month study was 18 μg/m3, which confirms that the Netherlands are characterised by a high PM burden. A first inspection of the AERONET level 1.5 (L1.5) AOD and PM2.5 data at Cabauw showed a low correlation between the two properties. However, after screening for cloud contamination in the AERONET L1.5 data, the correlation improved substantially. When also constraining the dataset to data points acquired around noon, the correlation between AOD and PM2.5 amounted to R2=0.6 for situations with fair weather. This indicates that AOD data contain information about the temporal evolution of PM2.5. We had used LIDAR observations to detect residual cloud contamination in the AERONET L1.5 data. Comparison of our cloud-screed L1.5 with AERONET L2 data that became available near the end of the study showed favorable agreement. The final relation found for Cabauw is PM2.5=124.5*AOD–0.34 (with PM2.5 in μg/m3) and is valid for fair weather conditions. The relationship determined between MODIS AOD and ground level PM2.5 at Cabauw is very similar to that based on the much larger dataset from the sun photometer data, after correcting for a systematic overestimation of the MODIS data of 0.05. We applied the relationship to a MODIS composite map to assess the PM2.5 distribution over the Netherlands. Spatial dependent systematic errors in the MODIS AOD, probably related to variability in surface reflectance, hamper a meaningful analysis of the spatial distribution of PM2.5 using AOD data at the scale of the Netherlands.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2089 (1) ◽  
pp. 012059
Author(s):  
G. Hemalatha ◽  
K. Srinivasa Rao ◽  
D. Arun Kumar

Abstract Prediction of weather condition is important to take efficient decisions. In general, the relationship between the input weather parameters and the output weather condition is non linear and predicting the weather conditions in non linear relationship posses challenging task. The traditional methods of weather prediction sometimes deviate in predicting the weather conditions due to non linear relationship between the input features and output condition. Motivated with this factor, we propose a neural networks based model for weather prediction. The superiority of the proposed model is tested with the weather data collected from Indian metrological Department (IMD). The performance of model is tested with various metrics..


1996 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 88-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.G.L. Hammond ◽  
L.J. Roseman

The bridging of the Hellespont by Xerxes was a unique achievement. How was it done? The Chorus of Elders in Aeschylus' Persians expressed their wonder at ‘the flax-bound raft’, and Herodotus described the construction of the two bridges, each with warships as pontoons, with cables well over a kilometre long, and with a roadway capable of carrying a huge army. Classical scholars have generally found these accounts inadequate and even inexplicable, especially in regard to the relationship between the pontoons and the cables. The Hellespont has strong currents which vary in their direction, turbulent and often stormy waters, and exposure to violent winds, blowing sometimes from the Black Sea and sometimes from the Mediterranean. How were the warships moored in order to face the currents and withstand the gales? Did the warships form a continuous platform, or was each ship free to move in response to weather conditions? What was the function of the enormous cables? How and where were they made? Did they bind the pontoons together? Did they carry the roadway? How were they fixed at the landward ends? This article attempts an answer to these questions through the collaboration of a classical scholar and a mechanical engineer.


Author(s):  
Angelo Spena ◽  
Leonardo Palombi ◽  
Massimo Corcione ◽  
Alessandro Quintino ◽  
Mariachiara Carestia ◽  
...  

Following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, several studies have examined the possibility of correlating the virulence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, to the climatic conditions of the involved sites; however, inconclusive results have been generally obtained. Although neither air temperature nor humidity can be independently correlated with virus viability, a strong relationship between SARS-CoV-2 virulence and the specific enthalpy of moist air appears to exist, as confirmed by extensive data analysis. Given this framework, the present study involves a detailed investigation based on the first 20–30 days of the epidemic before public health interventions in 30 selected Italian provinces with rather different climates, here assumed as being representative of what happened in the country from North to South, of the relationship between COVID-19 distributions and the climatic conditions recorded at each site before the pandemic outbreak. Accordingly, a correlating equation between the incidence rate at the early stage of the epidemic and the foregoing average specific enthalpy of atmospheric air was developed, and an enthalpy-based seasonal virulence risk scale was proposed to predict the potential danger of COVID-19 outbreak due to the persistence of weather conditions favorable to SARS-CoV-2 viability. As an early detection tool, an unambiguous risk chart expressed in terms of coupled temperatures and relative humidity (RH) values was provided, showing that safer conditions occur in the case of higher RHs at the highest temperatures, and of lower RHs at the lowest temperatures. Despite the complex determinism and dynamics of the pandemic and the related caveats, the restriction of the study to its early stage allowed the proposed risk scale to result in agreement with the available infectivity data highlighted in the literature for a number of cities around the world.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adina-Eliza Croitoru ◽  
Gabriela Dogaru ◽  
Titus Cristian Man ◽  
Simona Mălăescu ◽  
Marieta Motricală ◽  
...  

The main objective of this study was to analyze the perception of the influence of various weather conditions on patients with rheumatic pathology. A group of 394 patients, aged between 39 and 87 years and diagnosed with degenerative rheumatic diseases, were interviewed individually by using a questionnaire created specifically for this study. Further on, to assess the relationship between pain intensity and weather conditions, a frequency analysis based on Pearson’s correlation matrix was employed. The most important results are as follows: the great majority of the participants (more than 75%) believe that their rheumatic pain is definitely or to a great extent influenced by different weather conditions; most of the patients reported intensification of their pain with weather worsening, especially when cloudiness and humidity suddenly increase (83.8% and 82.0%, respectively), air temperature suddenly decreases (81.5%), and in fog or rain conditions (81.2%). In our research, alongside simple meteorological variables, we established that complex weather variables such as atmospheric fronts, in particular, the cold ones and winter anticyclonic conditions, greatly intensify the rheumatic pain, whereas summer anticyclonic conditions usually lead to a decrease in pain severity. In terms of relationships between pain intensity and weather conditions, we found the strongest correlations (ranging between 0.725 and 0.830) when temperature, relative humidity, and cloudiness are constantly high.


Plant Disease ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 104 (11) ◽  
pp. 2817-2822
Author(s):  
Odile Carisse ◽  
Audrey Levasseur ◽  
Caroline Provost

On susceptible varieties, indirect damage to vines infected by Elsinoë ampelina range from reduced vigor to complete defoliation while, on berries, damage ranges from reduced quality to complete yield loss. Limited knowledge about the relationship between weather conditions and infection makes anthracnose management difficult and favors routine application of fungicides. The influence of leaf wetness duration and temperature on infection of grape leaves by E. ampelina was studied under both controlled and vineyard conditions. For the controlled conditions experiments, the five youngest leaves of potted vines (Vidal) were inoculated with a conidia suspension and exposed to combinations of six leaf wetness durations (from 0 to 24 h) and six constant temperatures (from 5 to 30°C). A week after each preset infection period, the percent leaf area diseased (PLAD) was assessed. At 5°C, regardless of the leaf wetness duration, no disease developed. At 10 and at 15 to 30°C, the minimum leaf wetness durations were 4 and 6 h, respectively. Above the minimum wetness duration, at temperatures from 10 to 30°C, PLAD increased linearly, with increasing leaf wetness up to 12 h, and then at a lower rate from 12 to 24 h. The optimal temperature for infection was 25°C. Relative infection was modeled as a function of both temperature and wetness duration using a Richards model (R2 = 0.93). The predictive capacity of the model was evaluated with data collected in experimental vineyard plots exposed to natural wetness durations or artificial wetness durations created using sprinklers. In total, 264 vineyard infection events were used to validate the controlled experiments model. There was a linear relationship between the risk of infection estimated with the model and the observed severity of anthracnose (R2 = 90); however, the model underestimated disease severity. A risk chart was constructed using the model corrected for vineyard observations and three levels of risk, with light, moderate, and severe risks corresponding to ≤5, >5% to ≤25, and >25% leaf area diseased, respectively. Overall, 93.9% of 132 independent observations were correctly classified, with 100, 29.4, and 9.4% of the light, moderate, and severe risks, respectively.


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