Male willow warblers have song repertoires which vary in complexity along several dimensions. We examined whether female choice,
as measured by date of pairing, was based on these song characteristics in 4 different years. Pairing date was negatively
correlated with song repertoire size in 1 year, and with song versatility in another year, but there was no consistent effect
of any song characteristic on pairing throughout the years or in the pooled sample. The variable that best explained how soon
a male pairs is male arrival date (only males that had settled territories before the first female arrived were considered
in the analysis). This correlation is consistently significant in all years. This is most parsimoniously interpreted as females
choosing some habitat characteristic in the same way that males do. A small percentage of males (8.3%) attracted and paired
with a second female. The likelihood of becoming polygynous was not explained by any measured song characteristic, but it
was related to arrival date: early males were more likely to pair with two females. Males with large repertoires fledged more
young in their primary nests, and there was a trend for the offspring of these males to have a greater probability of being
recruited into the population. In conclusion, the results show that in most years there is no sexual selection by female preference
on song characteristics, although the data on reproductive success is consistent with the idea of repertoire size being an
indicator of male quality.
Received: 4 June 1999 / Received in revised form: 1 December 1999 / Accepted: 31 December 1999 相似文献
Spatial distribution of nutrient and phytoplankton variables is often illustrated using categorical mapping for each variable.
However, the assessment of eutrophication cannot be derived from a single parameter since a synthesis of the environmental
variables related to eutrophication is required. These shortcomings are further complicated since it is difficult to discriminate
between distinct trophic states along natural environmental gradients. In the present work, a methodological procedure for
quantitative assessment of eutrophication at a spatial scale was examined in the Gulf of Saronicos, Greece, based on a thematic
map generated from the synthesis of four variables characterising eutrophication. The categorical map of each variable was
developed using the Kriging interpolation method and four trophic levels were indicated (eutrophic, upper-mesotrophic, lower-mesotrophic
and oligotrophic) based on nutrient and phytoplankton concentration scaling. Multi-criteria choice methods were applied to
generate a final categorical map showing the four trophic levels in the area. This synthesis of categorical maps for assessing
eutrophication at a spatial scale is proposed as a methodological procedure appropriate for coastal management studies. 相似文献
Objective: This study explores the influence of mobile phone secondary tasks on driving from the perspective of visual, auditory, cognitive, and psychomotor (VACP) multiple resource theory, and it is anticipated to benefit the human-centered design of mobile phone use while driving.
Methods: The present study investigated 6 typical phone use scenarios while driving and analyzed the effects of phone use distractions on driving performance. Thirty-six participants were recruited to participate in this experiment. We abandoned traditional secondary tasks such as conversations or dialing, in which cognitive resources can become interference. Instead, we adopted an arrow secondary task and an n-back delayed digit recall task.
Results: The results show that all mobile phone use scenarios have a significant influence on driving performance, especially on lateral vehicle control. The visual plus psychomotor resource occupation scenario demonstrated the greatest deterioration of driving performance, and there was a significant deterioration of driving speed and steering wheel angle once the psychomotor resource was occupied.
Conclusions: Phone use distraction leads to visual, cognitive, and/or motor resource functional limitations and thus causes lane violations and traffic accidents. 相似文献
IntroductionAnalyzing key factors of motorcycle accidents is an effective method to reduce fatalities and improve road safety. Association Rule Mining (ARM) is an efficient data mining method to identify critical factors associated with injury severity. However, the existing studies have some limitations in applying ARM: (a) Most studies determined parameter thresholds of ARM subjectively, which lacks objectiveness and efficiency; (b) Most studies only listed rules with high parameter thresholds, while lacking in-depth analysis of multiple-item rules. Besides, the existing studies seldom conducted a spatial analysis of motorcycle accidents, which can provide intuitive suggestions for policymakers. Method: To address these limitations, this study proposes an ARM-based framework to identify critical factors related to motorcycle injury severity. A method for parameter optimization is proposed to objectively determine parameter thresholds in ARM. A method of factor extraction is proposed to identify individual key factors from 2-item rules and boosting factors from multiple-item rules. Geographic information system (GIS) is adopted to explore the spatial relationship between key factors and motorcycle injury severity. Results and conclusions: The framework is applied to a case study of motorcycle accidents in Victoria, Australia. Fifteen attributes are selected after data preprocessing. 0.03 and 0.7 are determined as the best thresholds of support and confidence in ARM. Five individual key factors and four boosting factors are identified to be related to fatal injury. Spatial analysis is conducted by GIS to present hot spots of motorcycle accidents. The proposed framework has been validated to have better performance on parameter optimization and rule analysis in ARM. Practical applications: The hot spots of motorcycle accidents related to fatal factors are presented in GIS maps. Policymakers can refer to those maps straightforwardly when decision making. This framework can be applied to various kinds of traffic accidents to improve the performance of severity analysis. 相似文献
ABSTRACT: Game-theoretic models are developed for describing and analyzing the inspection and enforcement process, especially as it relates to environmental laws and regulations in North America. Based on these models, systems using irrevocable control orders can be compared to those relying on court determination of guilt and punishment. The cost-effectiveness of environmental enforcement can be systematically assessed in terms of factors such as the private gains for violators, the costs of inspection, penalties, and the social value of deterring violations. The policy implications of the analysis, especially with reference to environmental protection, are emphasized. 相似文献
Thirty-one genetic amniocenteses involving multiple gestations were performed in the genetics unit between 1976 and 1982. Three sets of triplets were included. Precise locations of the sacs were determined using real-time ultrasonography and successful sampling of all sacs was accomplished. Spontaneous abortions occurred in two normal twins and one normal triplet gestation. Two therapeutic abortions were performed for fetal abnormalities. Two cases of discordance for trisomy 21 (one twin and one triplet) were allowed to continue; the twin case terminated at 25 weeks' gestation with neonatal deaths and the triplets are alive and well. 相似文献
Peroxyacyl nitrates (PANs) are important secondary pollutants in ground-level atmosphere. Accurate prediction of atmospheric pollutant concentrations is crucial to guide effective precautions for before and during specific pollution events. In this study, four models based on the back-propagation (BP) artificial neural network (ANN) and multiple linear regression (MLR) methods were used to predict the hourly average PAN concentrations at Peking University, Beijing, in 2014. The model inputs were atmospheric pollutant data and meteorological parameters. Model 3 using a BP-ANN based on the original variables achieved the best prediction results among the four models, with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.7089, mean bias error of ? 0.0043 ppb, mean absolute error of 0.4836?ppb, root mean squared error of 0.5320?ppb, and Willmott's index of agreement of 0.8214. Based on a comparison of the performance indices of the MLR and BP-ANN models, we concluded that the BP-ANN model was able to capture the highly non-linear relationships between PAN concentration and the conventional atmospheric pollutant and meteorological parameters, providing more accurate results than the traditional MLR models did, with a markedly higher goodness of R. The selected meteorological and atmospheric pollutant parameters described a sufficient amount of PAN variation, and thus provided satisfactory prediction results. More specifically, the BP-ANN model performed very well for capturing the variation pattern when PAN concentrations were low. The findings of this study address some of the existing knowledge gaps in this research field and provide a theoretical basis for future regional air pollution control. 相似文献