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Predator avoidance behaviors are assumed to occur at a cost to the potential prey. The invasive New Zealand Mud Snail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) exhibits several behaviors that appear to re...

The arise of maintenance issues in mechanical systems is cause for decreased energy efficiency and higher operating costs for many small- to medium-sized businesses. The sooner such issues can be identified and addressed, the greater the energy savings. We have designed and implemented an automated predictive maintenance system that uses machine learning models to predict maintenance needs from data collected via data sensors attached to mechanical systems. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the system by predicting several operating states for a standard clothes dryer.

Being able to accurately model a complex machine is important in the design process. Jet engines are expensive and complex thermodynamic systems that require accurate modeling. Modeling allows testing and analysis to be performed before it is implemented. It also allows control schemes to be integrated to determine if it affects the functioning of the system. There are many different types of software available to model thermodynamic systems. T-MATS was released February 5, 2014. It is an open-source software that has the benefit of being fully incorporated with Matlab™ and Simulink™, which allows both modeling and control scheme integration. This paper discusses T-MATS compared to other software and different types of usage.

At Dryandra in Western Australia, Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters preferred the more productive woodlands dominated by Wandoo, Eucalyptus wandoo, to those on poorer soils dominated by Powderbark Wandoo, E. accedens. They foraged mainly by gleaning and probing foliage and bark within the canopy of the largest trees. Insects were also taken by hawking, hovering, and snatching, but there were significant spatial and seasonal differences in the use of foraging substrates. Little nectar-feeding was recorded, but lerp, manna, and honeydew obtained from foliage and under bark were likely energy sources. Although the minimum area of habitat required for the conservation of Yellow-plumed Honeyeaters cannot be specified, it probably needs to be large, productive, little disturbed, and with mature eucalypts to ensure a diversity of foraging substrates. Access to a source of nectar for at least part of the year may also be necessary.

Policing the legality and normalcy of service members' sexual lives was a contentious process for military courts throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s that resulted in the inconsistent enforcement of the homosexual exclusion policy. Military personnel of all ranks and occupations harbored a variety of attitudes and beliefs about homosexuality that challenged the legitimacy and uniformity of the military's legal assault on sexual deviance. Over half of the active duty personnel originally accused of homosexual tendencies received either sentence reductions or sentence reversals as a result of this highly contested process by which official military policy was translated into practice via courts-martial. Paradoxically, the very policies that discriminated against alleged homosexual service members generated legal avenues through which gays and lesbians exercised their rights to due process, and, ultimately, their rights as American citizens embodied in the repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Rather than being an ideologically homophobic monolith, the Cold War American military rocked with contestation over an exclusion policy that attempted--unsuccessfully--to eliminate all gay and lesbian service members.