Signs and Docents in Zoo Visitor Education: Using Affinitive Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) Behaviors

The goals of zoos are providing an entertaining and educational experience for visitors, promoting environmental conservation, and promoting positive welfare for nonhuman residents. Education can unify these goals. In this study, data were collected on visitors to the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) exhibit at The Zoo Northwest Florida. Researchers implemented three conditions of education at the chimpanzee viewing platform: a graphic sign, a trained docent, and a control condition with no intervention. The sign and docent encouraged visitors to use affinitive chimpanzee behaviors. Visitors were significantly more active in the graphic sign condition and significantly less active in the docent condition, and their behavior did not vary from the expected value during the control condition. Visitors used the affinitive behaviors that were demonstrated in each experimental condition. These results suggest that both graphic signs and docent interaction affect visitor behavior and can be considered useful educational tools for fulfilling the goals of the zoos.

Strongly nonlinear elliptic unilateral problems without sign condition and with free obstacle in Musielak-Orlicz spaces

In this paper, we prove the existence of solutions to an elliptic problem containing two lower order terms, the first nonlinear term satisfying the growth conditions and without sign conditions and the second is a continuous function on R.

Existence results for some nonlinear degenerate problems in the anisotropic spaces

Our goal in this study is to prove the existence of solutions for the following nonlinear anisotropic degenerate elliptic problem:- \partial_{x_i} a_i(x,u,\nabla u)+ \sum_{i=1}^NH_i(x,u,\nabla u)= f- \partial_{x_i} g_i \quad \mbox{in} \ \ \Omega,where for $i=1,...,N$ $ a_i(x,u,\nabla u)$ is allowed to degenerate with respect to the unknown u, and $H_i(x,u,\nabla u)$ is a nonlinear term without a sign condition. Under suitable conditions on $a_i$ and $H_i$, we prove the existence of weak solutions.

Anisotropic nonlinear problem of infinite order with variables exponents and $L^1$ data

In this paper, we prove the existence of solutions for the strongly nonlinear equation of the type $$Au+g(x,u)=f$$ where $A$ is an elliptic operator of infinite order from a functional Sobolev spaces of infinite order with variables exponents to its dual. $g(x, s)$ is a lower order term satisfying essentially a sign condition on s and the second term f belongs to $L^1(\Omega)$.

Existence results for a perturbed Dirichlet problem without sign condition in Orlicz spaces

UDC 517.5 We deal with the existence result for nonlinear elliptic equations related to the form < b r > A u + g ( x , u , ∇ u ) = f , < b r > where the term - ⅆ i v ( a ( x , u , ∇ u ) ) is a Leray–Lions operator from a subset of W 0 1 L M ( Ω ) into its dual. The growth and coercivity conditions on the monotone vector field a are prescribed by an N -function M which does not have to satisfy a Δ 2 -condition. Therefore we use Orlicz–Sobolev spaces which are not necessarily reflexive and assume that the nonlinearity g ( x , u , ∇ u ) is a Carathéodory function satisfying only a growth condition with no sign condition. The right-hand side~ f belongs to W -1 E M ¯ ( Ω ) .

Evaluating a novel sign’s impact on whether park visitors enter a dangerous river

Background Between 1972 and 2015, 56 visitors to the two national parks that border the Potomac River Gorge experienced fatal drowning. In 2016, the George Washington Memorial Parkway (GWMP), and the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park (CHOH) partnered with a researcher to see if enhancement of their risk communication strategies could reduce behaviors that contribute to these deaths. Methods An experimental sign, which informed visitors that water entry was illegal and could result in a fine exceeding $200 was developed, and displayed on alternating weekend days from July 30 to September 11, 2016. Those signs were displayed at each park’s entrance, on restroom doors, at trailheads, and at both shorelines of the Potomac. At other times the experimental signs were covered, but a standard safety sign was always present. Cameras were used to record water entries. Results Cameras captured 1441 images. Approximately 2% of the images in CHOH and 1% of the images in GWMP showed a visitor in the water. Our multivariate analysis revealed that air temperature, beach count, and sign condition were significantly associated with water entry. When our experimental sign was displayed, the odds of an image showing someone in the water was reduced by 63%. Conclusions A sign alerting park visitors to the fact that water entry is illegal, and could potentially result in a considerable fine, was associated with significantly reduced risk-taking. While intuitive, this finding is a reminder to consider whether warnings that focus on non-health consequences might be more salient to at-risk populations.

Multiplicity of Solutions for a Class of Elliptic Problem of p-Laplacian Type with a p-Gradient Term

We consider the following problem: -Δpu=c(x)|u|q-1u+μ|∇u|p+h(x) in Ω, u=0 on ∂Ω, where Ω is a bounded set in RN (N≥3) with a smooth boundary, 1<p<N, q>0, μ∈R⁎, and c and h belong to Lk(Ω) for some k>N/p. In this paper, we assume that c≩0 a.e. in Ω and h without sign condition and then we prove the existence of at least two bounded solutions under the condition that ck and hk are suitably small. For this purpose, we use the Mountain Pass theorem, on an equivalent problem to (P) with variational structure. Here, the main difficulty is that the nonlinearity term considered does not satisfy Ambrosetti and Rabinowitz condition. The key idea is to replace the former condition by the nonquadraticity condition at infinity.