This paper introduces an intuitive and safe command approach for a quadrotor, where inertial and muscular gestures are used for semi-autonomous flight. A bracelet composed of gyroscopes, accelerometers, and electromyographic sensors is used to detect user gestures, then an algorithm is proposed to interpret the signals as flight commands. The main goal is to provide a wearable, easy-to-handle human–machine interface for users a to safely command this kind of vehicles, even for inexpert operators. Safety measures are incorporated in the scheme to further enhance the user’s experience. Experimental tests are performed to validate the proposal.

The objectives of this study were to analyse the differences in the genetic determination of functional longevity in five Spanish lines of rabbits and to check how different systematic factors might affect this genetic determination. Four of the lines were maternal (lines A, V, H and LP), these lines were established selecting base generation animals according to different criteria, but in the subsequent generations all of them were selected for litter size at weaning. The other is the paternal line R, this line was constituted by selecting animals with an outstanding daily growth rate. The trait analysed, length of productive life, was the time in days between the date of the first positive pregnancy test and the date of culling or death of a doe. Four models extended from the Cox proportional hazard model were used to analyse data of each line separately and jointly. The complete model (Model 1) included the fixed effect of year-season (YS) combination, positive palpation order (OPP), that is, reproductive cycle, physiological status of the doe (PS) at service and number of kits born alive (NBA) in each kindling as time-dependent factors. The inbreeding coefficient was fitted as a continuous covariate and the animal’s additive genetic effect was also fitted to the model (Model 1). The other models were identical to Model 1 but excluding OPP (Model 2) or PS (Model 3) or NBA (Model 4), which were explored to assess the consequence on additive variance estimates of not correcting for these animal-dependent factors. Estimated effective heritabilities of longevity were 0.07 ± 0.03, 0.03 ± 0.02, 0.14 ± 0.09, 0.05 ± 0.04, 0.02 ± 0.01 and 0.04 ± 0.01 for lines A, V, H, LP, R and for the merged data set, respectively. Removing the PS from the model led to an increase in the estimated additive genetic variance in all lines (0.17 ± 0.05, 0.05 ± 0.03, 0.29 ± 0.19, 0.29 ± 0.20, 0.07 ± 0.04 and 0.05 ± 0.02 for lines A, V, H, LP, R and the merged data set, respectively). The highest hazard of death and/or culling was observed during the first two parities and decreased as the order of parity progressed. Does non-pregnant-non-lactating had the highest risk of death or culling. The does that had zero kits born alive incurred the highest risk, and this risk decreased as the NBA increased. In conclusion, the consideration of longevity as selection criterion for the studied rabbit lines is not recommended.

When a container with two distinct fluids is subjected to vibrations in microgravity, the interface may undergo a variety of instabilities and develop towards a complex structure, as seen in recent parabolic flight experiments using both miscible and immiscible liquids. Among other things, the selected pattern depends on the frequency and amplitude of the forcing and, crucially, on its orientation with respect to the initial interface. In a parabolic flight experiment, this initial orientation is largely determined by the stage of the parabolic manoeuvre when the forcing is started and the residual gravity level during the period of microgravity. It plays a key role in the appearance of defects and irregularities during the evolution of the interface triggered by the frozen wave instability. Using numerical simulations, we systematically investigate the effect of initial interface orientation on pattern selection in microgravity for both miscible and immiscible fluids, and compare to available experiments. When the interface and the forcing are nearly aligned, the frozen wave instability is dominant, leading to the development of approximately regular columnar patterns. As the initial angle becomes more oblique, the frozen wave growth becomes more irregular and asymmetric and may involve thin auxiliary columns. Sufficiently large angles suppress the frozen wave instability and, depending on the container aspect ratio, may result in a simple two-column final state.

As a result of the genetic selection for prolificacy and the improvements in the environment and farms management, litter size has increased in the last few years so that energy requirements of the lactating sow are greater. In addition, selection for feed efficiency of growing pigs is also conducted in maternal lines, and this has led to a decrease in appetite and feed intake that is extended to the lactation period, so the females are not able to obtain the necessary energy and nutrients for milk production and they mobilize their energetic reserves. When this mobilization is excessive, reproductive and health problems occur which ends up in an early sow culling. In this context, it has been suggested to improve feed efficiency at lactation through genetic selection. The aim of this study is to know, in a Duroc population, the genetic determinism of sow feed efficiency during lactation and traits involved in its definition, as well as genetic and environmental associations between them. The studied traits are daily lactation feed intake (dLFI), daily sow weight balance (dSWB), backfat thickness balance (BFTB), daily litter weight gain (dLWG), sow residual feed intake (RFI) and sow restricted residual feed intake (RRFI) during lactation. Data corresponded to 851 parities from 581 Duroc sows. A Bayesian analysis was performed using Gibbs sampling. A four-trait repeatability animal model was implemented including the systematic factors of batch and parity order, the standardized covariates of sow weight (SWf) and litter weight (LWs) at farrowing for all traits and lactation length for BFTB. The posterior mean (posterior SD) of heritabilities were: 0.09 (0.03) for dLFI, 0.37 (0.07) for dSWB, 0.09 (0.03) for BFTB, 0.22 (0.05) for dLWG, 0.04 (0.02) for RFI and null for RRFI. The genetic correlation between dLFI and dSWB was high and positive (0.74 (0.11)) and null between dLFI and BFTB. Genetic correlation was favourable between RFI and dLFI and BFTB (0.71 (0.16) and −0.69 (0.18)), respectively. The other genetic correlations were not statistically different from zero. The phenotypic correlations were low and positive between dLFI and dSWB (0.27 (0.03), dSWB and BFTB (0.25 (0.04)), and between dLFI and dLWG (0.16 (0.03)). Therefore, in the population under study, the improvement of the lactation feed efficiency would be possible either using RFI, which would not have unfavourable correlated effects, or through an index including its component traits.

Performance and feeding behaviour traits in growing pigs could be affected by social interaction effects when animals are raised in group. So, properly knowing the genetic correlations between direct and social interaction effects among performance and feeding behaviour traits could improve the accuracy of the genetic evaluations. Our aim was to explore the role of feeding behaviour traits (FBT) and indirect genetic effects (IGEs) in the genetic evaluations of growing pigs. Thus, genetic parameters were estimated for production traits (PT): average daily gain, average daily feed consumption, feed conversion ratio and backfat thickness; as well as for FBT: average daily feeding rate, average daily feeding frequency, average daily occupation time and average daily time between consecutive visits. Traits were recorded in 1144 Duroc pigs during the fattening period. Two bivariate models were fitted: classic animal model and an animal model fitting IGE. Estimations were done following Bayesian procedures. Heritability estimates obtained with classic animal model for all studied traits were medium-high. The additional heritable variation captured by IGE supposed that the ratios of total genetic variance to phenotypic variance (T2) were higher than the heritability estimates obtained with the classic model, except for occupation time trait, when a lower value (0.20 ± 0.19) was estimated. This is due to a high and negative correlation between IGE and direct genetic effects (DGEs) of this particular trait (−0.78 ± 0.27). Results from classic animal model do not evidence a clear role of FBT to improve the accuracy of breeding value predictions for PT; only average daily feeding rate seems to show a positive correlation (around 0.50 to 0.60) with average daily gain, average daily feed consumption and backfat thickness. However, when IGE model was fitted, the number of estimates of genetic correlations between FBT and PT showing a relevant magnitude increased, generally for the correlations between IGE of FBT and DGE of PT; or particularly for the correlations between IGE of average daily feeding frequency, and the IGE of all the PT, except average daily gain. Thus, in evaluations using the animal model with IGE fitted, the inclusion of FBT could aid the improvement of the accuracy of breeding value predictions for PT. This is a consequence of the improved genetic relationships between traits that can be fitted when considering such models.

We determined ice velocities for the Academy of Sciences Ice Cap, Severnaya Zemlya, Russian Arctic, during November 2016–November 2017, by feature-tracking 54 pairs of Sentinel-1 synthetic-aperture radar images. Seasonal velocity variations with amplitudes up to 10% of the yearly-averaged velocity were observed. Shorter-term (<15 d) intra-annual velocity variations had average and maximum deviations from the annual mean of up to 16 and 32%, respectively. This indicates the errors that could be incurred if ice discharge values determined from a single pair of images were extrapolated to the whole year. Average ice discharge for 2016–2017 was 1.93 ± 0.12 Gt a−1. The difference from an estimate of ~ 1.4 Gt a−1 for 2003–2009 was attributed to the initiation of ice stream flow in Basin BC. The total geodetic mass balance over 2012–2016 was − 1.72 ± 0.67 Gt a−1 (− 0.31 ± 0.12 m w.e. a−1). The climatic mass balance was not significantly different from zero, at 0.21 ± 0.68 Gt a−1 (0.04 ± 0.12 m w.e. a−1), and has remained near zero at decadal-scale for the last four decades. Therefore, the total mass balance has been controlled largely by variations in ice discharge, whose long-term changes do not appear to have responded to environmental changes but to the intrinsic characteristics of the ice cap governing tidewater glacier dynamics.

The COllaborative project of Development of Anthropometrical measures in Twins (CODATwins) project is a large international collaborative effort to analyze individual-level phenotype data from twins in multiple cohorts from different environments. The main objective is to study factors that modify genetic and environmental variation of height, body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and size at birth, and additionally to address other research questions such as long-term consequences of birth size. The project started in 2013 and is open to all twin projects in the world having height and weight measures on twins with information on zygosity. Thus far, 54 twin projects from 24 countries have provided individual-level data. The CODATwins database includes 489,981 twin individuals (228,635 complete twin pairs). Since many twin cohorts have collected longitudinal data, there is a total of 1,049,785 height and weight observations. For many cohorts, we also have information on birth weight and length, own smoking behavior and own or parental education. We found that the heritability estimates of height and BMI systematically changed from infancy to old age. Remarkably, only minor differences in the heritability estimates were found across cultural–geographic regions, measurement time and birth cohort for height and BMI. In addition to genetic epidemiological studies, we looked at associations of height and BMI with education, birth weight and smoking status. Within-family analyses examined differences within same-sex and opposite-sex dizygotic twins in birth size and later development. The CODATwins project demonstrates the feasibility and value of international collaboration to address gene-by-exposure interactions that require large sample sizes and address the effects of different exposures across time, geographical regions and socioeconomic status.

We have observed the G23 field of the Galaxy AndMass Assembly (GAMA) survey using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in its commissioning phase to validate the performance of the telescope and to characterise the detected galaxy populations. This observation covers ~48 deg2 with synthesised beam of 32.7 arcsec by 17.8 arcsec at 936MHz, and ~39 deg2 with synthesised beam of 15.8 arcsec by 12.0 arcsec at 1320MHz. At both frequencies, the root-mean-square (r.m.s.) noise is ~0.1 mJy/beam. We combine these radio observations with the GAMA galaxy data, which includes spectroscopy of galaxies that are i-band selected with a magnitude limit of 19.2. Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) infrared (IR) photometry is used to determine which galaxies host an active galactic nucleus (AGN). In properties including source counts, mass distributions, and IR versus radio luminosity relation, the ASKAP-detected radio sources behave as expected. Radio galaxies have higher stellar mass and luminosity in IR, optical, and UV than other galaxies. We apply optical and IR AGN diagnostics and find that they disagree for ~30% of the galaxies in our sample. We suggest possible causes for the disagreement. Some cases can be explained by optical extinction of the AGN, but for more than half of the cases we do not find a clear explanation. Radio sources aremore likely (~6%) to have an AGN than radio quiet galaxies (~1%), but the majority of AGN are not detected in radio at this sensitivity.

We consider the response to periodic forcing between 5 Hz and 50 Hz of an interface separating immiscible fluids under the microgravity conditions of a parabolic flight. Two pairs of liquids with viscosity ratios differing by one order of magnitude are investigated. By combining experimental data with numerical simulations, we describe a variety of dynamics including harmonic and subharmonic (Faraday) waves, frozen waves and drop ejection, determining their thresholds and scaling properties when possible. Interaction between these various modes is facilitated in microgravity by the relative ease with which the interface can move, altering its orientation with respect to the forcing axis. The effects of key factors controlling pattern selection are analysed, including vibrational forcing, viscosity ratio, finite-size effects and residual gravity. Complex behaviour often arises with features on several spatial scales, such as Faraday waves excited on the interface of a larger columnar structure that develops due to the frozen wave instability – this type of state was previously seen in miscible fluid experiments but is described for the first time here in the immiscible case.

Cystic echinococcosis caused by Echinococcus granulosus is a major zoonosis of public health significance in the Patagonian region of Argentina. This investigation sought to test the hypothesis that the persistence and dispersion of the parasite eggs can be explained by physical and meteorological parameters along with final host infection and behaviour. This observational study was carried out over a five-year period within an enclosure where two dogs harbouring a worm burden ranging from 100 to 1000 mature adult E. granulosus, as well as two uninfected dogs, had previously been kept for six months. Environmental canine faeces, topsoil, pond water, and sediment samples were examined to control for the presence of eggs and coproantigens of the parasite using microscope-based techniques and copro-ELISA plus copro-Western Blot tests. The parasite eggs were detected up to 41 months later in faeces from infected dogs, soil and sediment, and coproantigen tests remained positive for up to 70 months in faeces. Overall, parasite eggs were found within a maximum distance of 115 m from the contaminated dog faeces deposition site. Our findings indicate that under Patagonian environmental conditions, egg persistence and dispersion seem to be related to the worm burden and habits of the infected dog, to prevailing wind direction and to the existence of low bushes as well as natural bodies of water. The present study is the first to provide direct evidence of interaction between bioclimatic conditions and E. granulosus egg dispersion under Patagonian field conditions.

CdSe nanoparticles were grown using a colloidal method, in which the pH was the main parameter that was varied (from 8 to 12) with the objective of knowing the morphological and structural effects after the synthesis process. The samples were characterized with X-ray diffraction and High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope to know their crystalline structure. We identified the formation of two crystalline phases in a single sample, as well as the different crystal direction of the material, the crystallites size was calculated from the X-ray diffraction pattern using the Debye- Scherrer equation. The distance between planes was also calculated using the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). The results and analysis of the experimental work are reported.

Hyneria lindae is one of the largest Devonian sarcopterygians. It was found in the Catskill Formation (late Famennian) of Pennsylvania, USA. The current study focuses on the palaeohistology of the humerus of this tristichopterid and supports a low ossification rate and a late ossification onset in the appendicular skeleton. In addition to anatomical features, the large size of the cell lacunae in the cortical bone of the humerus mid-shaft may suggest a large genome size and associated neotenic condition for this species, which could, in turn, be a partial explanation for the large size of H. lindae. The low metabolism of H. lindae revealed here by bone histology supports the hypothesis of an ambush predatory behaviour. Finally, the lines-of-arrested-growth pattern and late ossification of specimen ANSP 21483 suggest that H. lindae probably had a long juvenile stage before reaching sexual maturity. Although very few studies address the life-history traits of stem tetrapods, they all propose a slow limb development for the studied taxa despite different ecological conditions and presumably distinct behaviours. The bone histology of H. lindae would favour the hypothesis that a slow long-bone development could be a general character for stem tetrapods.

Differences in forage nutritive value between morning and afternoon are related to patterns of dehydration and carbohydrate accumulation throughout the day. In this way, management strategies that maximize grazing time during the afternoon could increase forage nutritive value and consequently nutrient intake. The aim of the current experiment was to evaluate the effect of the time of day (06.00 h [designated AM] or 15.00 h [PM]) that cattle are moved to a new paddock on forage nutritive value, grazing behaviour and animal performance of beef cattle on rotationally stocked Marandu palisadegrass (Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu Syn. Urochloa brizantha cv. Marandu) pastures. A spring and summer study was conducted in Pirassununga, SP, Brazil from October 2012 to March 2013 (182 days). Treatments were distributed in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Herbage mass, morphological composition, herbage allowance and stocking rates were similar between treatments during spring and summer. Moving animals to a new paddock, regardless of the time of day – 06.00 h (AM) or 15.00 h (PM) – stimulated grazing, modifying the distribution of meals throughout the day. However, compensatory mechanisms among grazing time, bite rate and forage nutritive value throughout the day operated in order to generate similar performance between animals offered a new paddock in the morning or in the afternoon.

The objective was to compare the performance of the updated Charlson comorbidity index (uCCI) and classical CCI (cCCI) in predicting 30-day mortality in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB). All cases of SAB in patients aged ⩾14 years identified at the Microbiology Unit were included prospectively and followed. Comorbidity was evaluated using the cCCI and uCCI. Relevant variables associated with SAB-related mortality, along with cCCI or uCCI scores, were entered into multivariate logistic regression models. Global model fit, model calibration and predictive validity of each model were evaluated and compared. In total, 257 episodes of SAB in 239 patients were included (mean age 74 years; 65% were male). The mean cCCI and uCCI scores were 3.6 (standard deviation, 2.4) and 2.9 (2.3), respectively; 161 (63%) cases had cCCI score ⩾3 and 89 (35%) cases had uCCI score ⩾4. Sixty-five (25%) patients died within 30 days. The cCCI score was not related to mortality in any model, but uCCI score ⩾4 was an independent factor of 30-day mortality (odds ratio, 1.98; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–3.74). The uCCI is a more up-to-date, refined and parsimonious prognostic mortality score than the cCCI; it may thus serve better than the latter in the identification of patients with SAB with worse prognoses.

Based on the data from the Next Generation Virgo cluster Survey (NGVS), we statistically study the photometric properties of globular clusters (GCs), ultra-compact dwarfs (UCDs) and dwarf nuclei in the Virgo core (M87) region. We found an obvious negative color (g - z) gradient in GC system associate with M87, i.e. GCs in the outer regions are bluer. However, such color gradient does not exist in UCD system, neither in dwarf nuclei system around M87. In addition, we found that many UCDs are surrounded by extended, low surface brightness envelopes. The dwarf nuclei and UCDs show different spatial distributions from GCs, with dwarf nuclei and UCDs (especially for the UCDs with visible envelopes) lying at larger distances to the Virgo center. These results support the view that UCDs (at least for a fraction of UCDs) are more tied to dwarf nuclei than to GCs.

AGB stars are important contributors of processed matter to the ISM. However, the physical and chemical mechanisms involved in its ejection are still poorly known. This process is expected to have remarkable effects in the innermost envelope, where the dust grains are formed, the gas is accelerated, the chemistry is active, and the radiative excitation becomes important. A good tracer of this region in C-rich stars is SiS, an abundant refractory molecule that can display maser lines, very sensitive to changes in the physical conditions. We present high angular resolution interferometer observations (HPBW ≳0.″.25) of the v = 0 J = 14 – 13 and 15 – 14 SiS maser lines towards the archetypal AGB star IRC+10216, carried out with CARMA and ALMA to explore the inner 1” region around the central star. We also present an ambitious monitoring of these lines along one single pulsation period carried out with the IRAM 30 m telescope.