Male satin bowerbirds (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ptilonorhynchus violaceus</Emphasis>) compensate for sexual signal loss by enhancing multiple display features

Numerous studies have focussed on the relationship between female choice and the multiple exaggerated sexual traits of males. However, little is known about the ability of males to actively enhance specific components of their display in response to the loss of one component. We investigated the capacity of male satin bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus) to respond to the loss of one of their sexual signals by performing an experiment in which we removed decorations at their bowers. We found that males compensated for decoration loss by increasing bower construction behaviour and decreasing their latency to bower painting. These results are novel because they suggest that males can assess the quality of their own display and make decisions about how to augment their displays. We discuss these results in the context of previous studies of mate choice in satin bowerbirds, as both of the supplementary behaviours we observed are known correlates of male mating success.     

近海沉积物组份对有机物的吸附与吸附机理探讨

以大连近海沉积物主要组份碳酸钙、金属氧化物、腐殖酸和粘土矿物为沉积物模拟样品,测定该4种组份对硝基苯等4种毒性有机的吸附等温线,在此基础上建立了多组份吸附剂吸附等温模式。通过吸附热的测定,探付了4种沉积物组份吸附毒性有机物的机理,并比较了相对吸附能力大小     

A novel method dependent only on the mixture information (MIM) for evaluating the toxicity of mixture

Compound contamination and toxicity interaction necessitate the development of models that have an insight into the combined toxicity of chemicals. In this paper, a novel and simple model dependent only on the mixture information (MIM), was developed. Firstly, the concentration-response data of seven groups of binary and multi-component (pseudo-binary) mixtures with different mixture ratios to Vibrio qinghaiensis sp.-Q67 were determined using the microplate toxicity analysis. Then, a desirable non-linear function was selected to fit the data. It was found that there are good linear correlations between the location parameter (α) and mixture ratio (p) of a component and between the steepness (β) and p. Based on the correlations, a mixture toxicity model independent of pure component toxicity profiles was built. The model can be used to accurately estimate the toxicities of the seven groups of mixtures, which greatly simplified the predictive procedure of the combined toxicity.     

A New Homogeneous Non-Equilibrium Model to Compute Vapor-Liquid Two-Phase Critical Pressure Ratios of Multicomponent Hydrocarbon Mixtures

The critical pressure ratio (η_c) is an essential parameter for computing the vapor-liquid two-phase critical pressure and mass flow rate of multicomponent hydrocarbon mixtures flowing through valves and leakage orifices. The Homogeneous Non-Equilibrium Diener-Schmidt (HNE-DS) model widely used to calculate η_c assumes that the fluid's volume linearly changes with the pressure (using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation), which is not suitable for multicomponent gas mixtures. In this paper, a new Homogeneous Non-Equilibrium (new-HNE) model is proposed to calculate η_c of gas mixtures. Firstly, a new critical flow compressibility factor (ω_c) is developed from its thermodynamic definition and the Peng-Robinson equation of state (EOS), overcoming the inherent limitations of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Then, η_c is correlated to the newly derived ω_c by fitting experimental data at various pressures and gas mass fractions of both single-component and multicomponent gas mixtures, yielding the new HNE-DS model. Results show that, for the water-steam and air-water two-phase flow, the average relative deviations (ARD) between the calculated critical pressure ratios and experimental values are equal to 2.8% and 4.93%, respectively, which represents a significant improvement in comparison with the original HNE-DS model. Moreover, this new model is extended to the applications of Liquefied natural gas (LNG)/liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fluids, and will further contribute to the calculation of the leakage mass flow rate of fluid flowing through the orifices/valves.     

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics of ecosystems: Entropic analysis of stability and diversity

The aim of the paper is first to develop a non-equilibrium thermodynamic model of a multi-species ecosystem. The key to this is the expression of entropy-production (change of entropy) which is equivalent to a well-known expression of Liapunov function used in many problems of ecological and chemical reaction systems. On the basis of the expression of entropy-production we have made an entropic (thermodynamic) analysis of ecological stability (both global and local) including the study of interrelation between ecological diversity and stability. As illustrative examples we have discussed some basic problems of classical and generalized Lotka–Volterra systems.