Effects of Trichoderma strigosellum in Eucalyptus urophylla Development and Leaf-Cutting Ant Behavior

Fungal endophytes can protect plants against herbivory and be used to control leaf-cutting ants. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the potential of endophytic colonization of Eucalyptus urophylla by three filamentous fungal species and their influence on the plant development and foraging behavior of Atta sexdens. The study design was completely randomized and comprised a factorial scheme of 4 × 3, three antagonistic fungal species (Escovopsis sp., Metarhizium anisopliae, and Trichoderma strigosellum) of the leaf-cutting ant, and one control and three inoculation methods (conidial suspension via foliar spray [FS] and soil drench [SD] inoculation, and seedlings inoculated with mycelium [SWM]). The SWM method allowed T. strigosellum to colonize all plant organs, and these plants exhibited higher height, leaf number, shoot dry mass, and total dry mass than the ones subjected to the other inoculation methods. The SWM method increased the plant height than the control plants and those inoculated with Escovopsis sp. and M. anisopliae. Trichoderma strigosellum, previously isolated from soil, colonized E. urophylla plants and positively influenced their development, as demonstrated by the SWM method. Trichoderma strigosellum promoted the increase in E. urophylla height compared with when the FS and SD methods were used (by 19.62% and 18.52%, respectively). Our results reveal that A. sexdens workers preferentially began cutting the leaves from plants not previously colonized by T. strigosellum. This behavior can be explained by modifications in the phenotypic traits of the eucalyptus leaves.

The Relationship of Adolescents’ Perception of the Style of Parental Education with a Tendency to Deviant Behavior

The article is devoted to the description of the results of an empirical study, the purpose of which was to identify the relationship between the characteristics of the propensity of adolescents to devi-ant behavior and their perception of parenting styles. The largest number of variants of connections with the perception of the style of parental education was obtained with the scale “aggression and violence”. The higher the indicators of the test of the propensity to deviant behavior on the scale of “aggression and violence”, the more often he evaluates the parenting style in his family as “hypoprotection”, “indulgence” or vice versa “ignoring the needs of the child”, believes that parents show “in-sufficient requirements-duties and requirements-prohibitions”, show “unstable parenting style”, have “undeveloped parental feelings” and “preference for childish qualities in a teenager”.

A New Self-Balancing Assembly Line Based on Collaborative Ant Behavior

In most mass-production assembly lines, workers perform a set of tasks repetitively predefined by assembly line balancing techniques. The static task assignment often leads to low productivity when the assembly system faces disruptions or uncertainties such as machine breakdown and uneven worker capabilities. The idea of bucket brigades (BB) has been introduced to address the static assignment problems where cooperative behavior of ants is applied to flow line control. This paper examines possible efficiency losses associated with the existing BB-based assembly cell and presents an improved version for assembly cells under uncertain environments. The new system attempts to enhance productivity by assigning assembly tasks to workers dynamically and possibly adding buffers for decoupling consecutive workers. The proposed assembly system is evaluated through simulation experiments under various manufacturing environments. The experimental results show that the new system provides higher productivity than the naïve BB-based assembly cell as well as traditional assembly cells, especially for uncertain assembly environments.

AntsOMG: A Framework Aiming to Automate Creativity and Intelligent Behavior with a Showcase on Cantus Firmus Composition and Style Development

Creative behavior is one of the most fascinating areas in intelligence. The development of specific styles is the most characteristic feature of creative behavior. All important creators, such as Picasso and Beethoven, have their own distinctive styles that even non-professional art lovers can easily recognize. Hence, in the present work, attempting to achieve cantus firmus composition and style development as well as inspired by the behavior of natural ants and the mechanism of ant colony optimization (ACO), this paper firstly proposes a meta-framework, called ants on multiple graphs (AntsOMG), mainly for roughly modeling creation activities and then presents an implementation derived from AntsOMG for composing cantus firmi, one of the essential genres in music. Although the mechanism in ACO is adopted for simulating ant behavior, AntsOMG is not designed as an optimization framework. Implementations can be built upon AntsOMG in order to automate creation behavior and realize autonomous development on different subjects in various disciplines. In particular, an implementation for composing cantus firmi is shown in this paper as a demonstration. Ants walk on multiple graphs to form certain trails that are composed of the interaction among the graph topology, the cost on edges, and the concentration of pheromone. The resultant graphs with the distribution of pheromone can be interpreted as a representation of cantus firmus style developed autonomously. Our obtained results indicate that the proposal has an intriguing effect, because significantly different styles may be autonomously developed from an identical initial configuration in separate runs, and cantus firmi of a certain style can be created in batch simply by using the corresponding outcome. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the presented implementation is immediately applicable to the creation of cantus firmi and possibly other music genres with slight modifications. Second, AntsOMG, as a meta-framework, may be employed for other kinds of autonomous development with appropriate implementations.

Glandular Secretions of Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): A Review on Extraction, Chemical Characterization and Antibiotic Potential

Ants live under ideal microclimatic conditions for the development of microorganisms. As mechanisms to ensure the health of the colony and as a defense strategy, these insects developed exocrine glands that work in the production of antibiotics (chemical defense) and in the immune defense of the colony. This study aimed to describe the state-of-the-art on extraction methods, chemical characterization and the antibiotic potential of glandular secretions of ants. This is a review of the scientific literature between 1989 and 2017. A total of 52 articles were selected. These addressed the behavior, chemical characterization, the antimicrobial effect and evaluated methods of extraction. The most investigated genera are Atta, Acromyrmexand Crematogaster. The glands most reported in the articles involving extraction of secretions were Dufour, mandibular and metapleural. The most reported methods of extraction were gland maceration and extraction with (organic) solvents and direct extraction of the gland. Most studies evaluated secretions with respect to ant behavior. There is a paucityin the literature about the chemical characterization of most glandular secretions of ants, as well as for most taxa. The same deficiency is observed with regard to prospecting the antibiotic and antifungal potential of these secretions. for most taxa. The same deficiency is observed with regard to prospecting the antibiotic and antifungal potential of these secretions.

Optimization in Determining Routes of Goods Distribution Vehicle Using the Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm Method at PT XYZ

PT XYZ is one of freight forwarding companies in Indonesia, which is located in the city of Bandung. This company has managerial functions related to Collecting, Processing, Transporting, Delivery, and Reporting. However, the fact is in the process of Transporting this company still uses a zoning system which is a shipping system that still divides tertiary areas and each of these areas uses one vehicle. One problem that arises is that companies want effective and efficient performance in the distribution system of goods with the minimum total transportation costs. However, the company does not know yet whether the company's shipping routes have been effective and efficient or not. The company has tertiary network distribution route that are 2 routes with a total distance of 143.4 Km and a total transportation cost of Rp 5,681,484 /month. This research aims to determine the optimal goods distribution route using the Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm method, which is the method of finding the shortest path following ant behavior in taking food to its nest. Based on the results of the research, it is obtained a total distance of 109.2 Km because it becomes 1 route and total transportation costs Rp 3,337,992 /month, then it is obtained optimal results with a difference in distance is 34.2 Km and a total transportation cost of Rp 2,343,492 /month using one vehicle. Keywords: Optimization, Distribution, Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm