This study reports a novel form of interference behaviour between the invasive wasp Vespula vulgaris and the New Zealand native ant Prolasius advenus. By videotaping interactions at bait stations, we found that wasps commonly remove ant competitors from food resources by picking up the workers in their mandibles, flying backward and dropping them unharmed some distance from the food. Both the f...

this study simulates the temperature field and temperature stress of concrete face slabs, considering the cold waves that occur during construction as well as the contact friction between the face slabs and the cushion layer. the results show that when a cold wave occurs during construction, the surface and center temperature of the face slabs continually drop with the outside air temperature, ...

AIM The stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) is characterized by stretching of the target muscle (eccentric phase) prior to a subsequent shortening in the concentric phase. Stretch reflexes in the eccentric phase were argued to influence the performance of short lasting SSCs. In drop-jumps, the short latency component of the stretch reflex (SLR) was shown to increase with falling height. However, in ...

The effect of thermal and solutal buoyancy induced by a discrete source of heat and mass transfer in a square duct under the influence of magnetic field, especially at the turbulent regime for the first time is reported. Al2O3/water nanofluid is used with constant heat flux from three discrete heat sources. In the present study, the effects of Reynolds number (100 to 3000), particle volume frac...

This paper studies two one-dimensional models to estimate the pressure drop in the normal human biliary system for Reynolds number up to 20. Excessive pressure drop during bile emptying and refilling may result in incomplete bile emptying, leading to stasis and subsequent formation of gallbladder stones. The models were developed following the group's previous work on the cystic duct using nume...

Long-runout landslides are landslides with volumes of 10 m or more, which move much farther from their source than expected. The observation that Martian landslides are generally less mobile than terrestrial landslides offers important evidence regarding the mechanism responsible for the high mobility of long-runout landslides. Here we simulate landslides as granular flow using a soft-particle ...

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of two plyometric training techniques on power and agility in youth soccer players. Twelve males from a semiprofessional football club's academy (age = 17.3 +/- 0.4 years, stature = 177.9 +/- 5.1 cm, mass = 68.7 +/- 5.6 kg) were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of depth jump (DJ) or countermovement jump (CMJ) training twice weekly. Participants in th...

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences of kinematics, impact force, soft-tissue vibration, and muscle activity between active (AL) and unexpected landing (UL). Twelve trained male volunteers were requested to land from self-made elevated platform at three heights (30, 45, and 60cm) in AL and UL conditions. During active landing, human body can adjust the landing strategy of ...

Brass Ferrules have been used as packing in a laboratory- scale glass distillation column approaching pilot plant size because of their availability in all sizes and low cost. The available size range is such that these ferrules could also be used in industry and the results of this study could be scaled up. The performance of the new packing has been compared with the performance of glass ...