Current video surveillance systems still lack of intelligent video and data analysis modules for supporting situation awareness of decision makers. Especially in mass gatherings like large public events, the decision maker would benefit from different views of the area, especially from crowd density estimations. This article describes a multi-camera system called NEST and its application for cr...

We present NeST, a flexible software-only storage appliance designed to meet the storage needs of the Grid. NeST has three key features that make it well-suited for deployment in a Grid environment. First, NeST provides a generic data transfer architecture that supports multiple data transfer protocols (including GridFTP and NFS), and allows for the easy addition of new protocols. Second, NeST ...

The amino acid compositions of house and cave bird’s nest were determined. Seventeen amino acids were identified, and hydroxyproline was not found. Principle component analysis (PCA) was applied to differentiate the birds’ nests according to their origin and to assess the correlations between the bird’s nest and their amino acid compositions. Studies on the score and loading plots indicated tha...

Most previous artificial ant foraging algorithms have to date relied to some degree on a priori knowledge of the environment, in the form of explicit gradients generated by the nest, by hard-coding the nest location in an easily-discoverable place, or by imbuing the artificial ants with the knowledge of the nest direction. In contrast, the work presented solves ant foraging problems using two p...

Analysis tools that combine large spatial and temporal scales are necessary for efficient management of wildlife species, such as the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia). We assessed the ability of Ripley’s K-function analysis integrated into a geographic information system (GIS) to determine changes in burrowing owl nest clustering over two years at NASA Ames Research Center. Specifically, we u...

A longstanding suggestion posits that parents prefer to match nest volume and clutch size (clutch volume), but few studies have tested this in colonial seabirds that nest in the open. Here, we demonstrate the effects of nest-clutch volume matching on egg survival, hatching, and fledgling success in black-tailed gulls Larus crassirostris on Hongdo Island, Korea. We show that the volume mismatch,...

In polydomous populations of the wood ant Formica exsecta filial nest founding is common. This is relevant for colony dynamics, short-distance dispersal and colony survival. However, little is known about nest site choice, microsite requirements and the nest-building behavior itself. In this context we evaluate the role of the European mole, Talpa europaea, as an ecosystem engineer that provide...

Much interest lies in the identification of manageable habitat variables that affect key vital rates for species of concern. For ground-nesting birds, vegetation surrounding the nest may play an important role in mediating nest success by providing concealment from predators. Height of grasses surrounding the nest is thought to be a driver of nest survival in greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus u...

Recent advancements in extraction technologies have resulted in rapid increases of gas and oil development across the United States and specifically in western North Dakota. This expansion of energy development has unknown influences on local wildlife populations and the ecological interactions within and among species. Our objectives for this study were to evaluate nest success and nest predat...

Local guilds define groups of species that share common resources and coexist in space and time. Local guilds have historically been a major focus of community ecology; however, studies of local guilds rarely measure consequences of coexistence for fitness-related traits or test predictions of alternative hypotheses for how species may interact. We studied consequences of coexistence for Orange...