Increasing the number of options can paradoxically lead to worse decisions, a phenomenon known as cognitive overload [1]. This happens when an individual decision-maker attempts to digest information exceeding its processing capacity. Highly integrated groups, such as social insect colonies, make consensus decisions that combine the efforts of many members, suggesting that these groups can over...

ant colony optimisation (aco) algorithm and adaptive refinement mechanism are used in this paper for solution of optimization problems. many of the real engineering problems are، however، of continuous nature and finding their solution by discrete ant based algorithms requires discretisation of the decision variables in which affected the convergence and performance of the algorithm. in this pa...

one of the most important extensions of the capacitated vehicle routing problem (cvrp) is the vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery (vrpspd) where customers require simultaneous delivery and pick-up service. in this paper, we propose an effective ant colony optimization (eaco) which includes insert, swap and 2-opt moves for solving vrpspd that is different with common an...

Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) is a mobile network which holds the concept of forming a network of vehicles. The nodes which act as routers in the network exhibit high mobility, high dynamic behavior and formation of random network topologies. These are basic features of VANET. Ant based routing is a bioinspired communication and is more popular these days because of its adaptive and dynamic ...

We previously demonstrated the substantial capacity for angiotensin (ANG) II formation in the interstitium of the dog heart in vivo. The current study tested the hypothesis that interstitial fluid (ISF) bradykinin (BK) is influenced by ANG II formation. Four microdialysis probes were inserted into the left ventricular myocardium of eight open-chest anesthetized dogs. The probe effluent was coll...

Viral protein R (Vpr) encoded by HIV-1 is a facultative inducer of apoptosis. When added to intact cells or purified mitochondria, micromolar and submicromolar doses of synthetic Vpr cause a rapid dissipation of the mitochondrial transmembrane potential (DeltaPsi(m)), as well as the mitochondrial release of apoptogenic proteins such as cytochrome c or apoptosis inducing factor. The same structu...

Solenopsis geminata group (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) encompasses ant species commonly called fire ants because of their painful sting. The many physiological effects of the venom are caused by 2-methyl-6-alkyl and/or alkenylpiperidine alkaloids. The variation in piperidine alkaloid structures has useful taxonomic characters. The most well studied Solenopsis species is Solenopsis invicta, which w...

BACKGROUND The sympathetic activation that follows acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Because the prognosis after anterior AMI (ant-AMI) is worse than that after inferior AMI (inf-AMI), we planned to determine whether the magnitude of sympathetic hyperactivity differs between the two. METHODS AND RESULTS Thirty-nine patients with unco...

A 7-year-old male was brought to our emergency department with a sensation of a persistent lump in his throat after drinking an unsealed carbonated beverage. Flexible nasopharyngoscopy revealed a black ant in the right hypopharynx. Despite repeatedly drinking water, the ant could not be swallowed, and it had firmly attached to the posterior pharyngeal wall (Figure 1). After discussion with his ...

Two hundred eighty-eight heifer calves in two 1-yr replications were used to test the hypothesis that ionophore (ION) feeding, anthelmintic (ANT) administration, or the combination (COMB) would cause heifers to express pubertal estrus at a younger age than control (CONT) heifers. Heifers were assigned randomly within three weight blocks in a randomized complete block design with a 2 x 2 factori...