The effects of experience on prey and prey-patch choice were compared between two species of marine predatory crabs. The blue crab, Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, is highly mobile and forages in a variety of estuarine and lagoonal habitats. The Atlantic mud crab, Panopeus herbstii H. Milne-Edwards, is smaller and less mobile and is found mostly in oyster reefs and on shelly bottoms. In the labora...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to assess the potential dermal exposure to styrene in the fibreglass reinforced plastics industry. METHODS Assessment was performed during spraying and rolling using a patch sampling technique. The patch was made of charcoal sandwiched between two layers of cotton fabric. Samplers were fastened at 12 different spots on a sampling overall, each spot represe...

Movement and exchange of individuals among habitats is critical for the dynamics and success of reef fish populations. Size segregation among habitats could be taken as evidence for habitat connectivity, and this would be a first step to formulate hypotheses about ontogenetic inter-habitat migrations. The primary goal of our research was to find evidence of inter-habitat differences in size dis...

This paper presents a new formulation of the problem of motion estimation which attempts to give solutions to classical problems in the field, such as detection of motion discontinuities and insufficiency of the optical flow constraint in areas with low intensity variation. An initial intensity segmentation phase partitions each frame into patches so that areas with low intensity variation are ...

In this paper, we first propose four-layer optimization for UMTS coverage area: (i) cell-oriented intra-SGSN layer, which is optimized RA areas covering the intra-SGSN signaling cost, paging cost and RA load balancing, (ii) RA-oriented intra-MSC layer, which is optimized location areas covering the intra-MSC signaling cost and LA load balancing,(iii) RA-oriented inter-SGSN layer, which is optim...

Attaining animal-like legged locomotion on rough outdoor terrain with sparse foothold affordances — a primary use-case for legs vs other forms of locomotion — is a largely open problem. New advancements in control and perception have enabled bipeds to walk on flat and uneven indoor environments. But tasks that require reliable contact with unstructured world surfaces, for example walking on nat...

BACKGROUND The optimal cardiac graft for the repair of congenital heart defects will be composed of autologous cells and will grow with the child. The biodegradable material should permit rapid cellular growth and delayed degradation with minimal inflammation. We compared a new material, epsilon-caprolactone-co-L-lactide sponge reinforced with knitted poly-L-lactide fabric (PCLA), to gelatin (G...

We investigated the pharmacokinetics and safety profiles of a newly developed combined ethinylestradiol (EE)/gestodene (GSD) transdermal contraceptive patch after a single-dose administration and compared with the market available tablet formulation in healthy adult subjects. An open-label, two-period comparative study was conducted in 12 healthy women volunteers. A single dose of the study com...

SNARE proteins are conserved components of the core fusion machinery driving diverse membrane adhesion and fusion processes in the cell. In many cases micron-sized membranes adhere over large areas before fusion. Reconstituted in vitro assays have helped isolate SNARE mechanisms in small membrane adhesion-fusion and are emerging as powerful tools to study large membrane systems by use of giant ...