Emergence of collective changes in travel direction of starling flocks from individual birds' fluctuations

One of the most impressive features of moving animal groups is their ability to perform sudden coherent changes in travel direction. While this collective decision can be a response to an external alarm cue, directional switching can also emerge from the intrinsic fluctuations in individual behaviour. However, the cause and the mechanism by which such collective changes of direction occur are not fully understood yet. Here, we present an experimental study of spontaneous collective turns in natural flocks of starlings. We employ a recently developed tracking algorithm to reconstruct three-dimensional trajectories of each individual bird in the flock for the whole duration of a turning event. Our approach enables us to analyse changes in the individual behaviour of every group member and reveal the emergent dynamics of turning. We show that spontaneous turns start from individuals located at the elongated tips of the flocks, and then propagate through the group. We find that birds on the tips deviate from the mean direction of motion much more frequently than other individuals, indicating that persistent localized fluctuations are the crucial ingredient for triggering a collective directional change. Finally, we quantitatively verify that birds follow equal-radius paths during turning, the effects of which are a change of the flock''s orientation and a redistribution of individual locations in the group.     

A framework for understanding the architecture of collective movements using pairwise analyses of animal movement data

The study of collective or group-level movement patterns can provide insight regarding the socio-ecological interface, the evolution of self-organization and mechanisms of inter-individual information exchange. The suite of drivers influencing coordinated movement trajectories occur across scales, resulting from regular annual, seasonal and circadian stimuli and irregular intra- or interspecific interactions and environmental encounters acting on individuals. Here, we promote a conceptual framework with an associated statistical machinery to quantify the type and degree of synchrony, spanning absence to complete, in pairwise movements. The application of this framework offers a foundation for detailed understanding of collective movement patterns and causes. We emphasize the use of Fourier and wavelet approaches of measuring pairwise movement properties and illustrate them with simulations that contain different types of complexity in individual movement, correlation in movement stochasticity, and transience in movement relatedness. Application of this framework to movements of free-ranging African elephants (Loxodonta africana) provides unique insight on the separate roles of sociality and ecology in the fission–fusion society of these animals, quantitatively characterizing the types of bonding that occur at different levels of social relatedness in a movement context. We conclude with a discussion about expanding this framework to the context of larger (greater than three) groups towards understanding broader population and interspecific collective movement patterns and their mechanisms.     

Social information use and the evolution of unresponsiveness in collective systems

Animal groups in nature often display an enhanced collective information-processing capacity. It has been speculated that natural selection will tune this response to be optimal, ensuring that the group is reactive while also being robust to noise. Here, we show that this is unlikely to be the case. By using a simple model of decision-making in a dynamic environment, we find that when individuals behave rationally and are subject to selection based on their accuracy, optimality of collective decision-making is not attained. Instead, individuals overly rely on social information and evolve to be too readily influenced by their neighbours. This is due to a classic evolutionary conflict between individual and collective interest. The result is a sub-optimal system that is poised on the cusp of total unresponsiveness. Individuals in the evolved group exhibit delayed reactions to changes in the environment, before responding with rapid, socially reinforced transitions, reminiscent of familiar human and animal social systems (markets, stampedes, fashions, etc.). Our results demonstrate that behaviour of this type may not be pathological, but instead could represent an evolutionary attractor for such collective systems.     

A conflict model for the international hazardous waste disposal dispute

A multi-stage conflict model is developed to analyze international hazardous waste disposal disputes. More specifically, the ongoing toxic waste conflicts are divided into two stages consisting of the dumping prevention and dispute resolution stages. The modeling and analyses, based on the methodology of graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), are used in both stages in order to grasp the structure and implications of a given conflict from a strategic viewpoint. Furthermore, a specific case study is investigated for the Ivory Coast hazardous waste conflict. In addition to the stability analysis, sensitivity and attitude analyses are conducted to capture various strategic features of this type of complicated dispute.     

Predicting oscillatory dynamics in the movement of territorial animals

Understanding ecological processes relies upon the knowledge of the dynamics of each individual component. In the context of animal population ecology, the way animals move and interact is of fundamental importance in explaining a variety of observed patterns. Here, we present a theoretical investigation on the movement dynamics of interacting scent-marking animals. We study how the movement statistics of territorial animals is responsible for the appearance of damped oscillations in the mean square displacement (MSD) of the animals. This non-monotonicity is shown to depend on one dimensionless parameter, given by the ratio of the correlation distance between successive steps to the size of the territory. As that parameter increases, the time dependence of the animal''s MSD displays a transition from monotonic, characteristic of Brownian walks, to non-monotonic, characteristic of highly correlated walks. The results presented here represent a novel way of determining the degree of persistence in animal movement processes within confined regions.     

Explicit dynamics in impact simulation using a NURBS contact interface

In this paper, the impact problem and the subsequent wave propagation are considered. For the contact discretization an intermediate non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) layer is added between the contacting finite element bodies, which allows a smooth contact formulation and efficient element-based integration. The impact event is ill-posed and requires a regularization to avoid propagating stress oscillations. A nonlinear mesh-dependent penalty regularization is used, where the stiffness of the penalty regularization increases upon mesh refinement. Explicit time integration methods are well suited for wave propagation problems, but are efficient only for diagonal mass matrices. Using a spectral element discretization in combination with a NURBS contact layer the bulk part of the mass matrix is diagonal.     

Recent advances in the analysis of behavioural organization and interpretation as indicators of animal welfare

While the incorporation of mathematical and engineering methods has greatly advanced in other areas of the life sciences, they have been under-utilized in the field of animal welfare. Exceptions are beginning to emerge and share a common motivation to quantify ‘hidden’ aspects in the structure of the behaviour of an individual, or group of animals. Such analyses have the potential to quantify behavioural markers of pain and stress and quantify abnormal behaviour objectively. This review seeks to explore the scope of such analytical methods as behavioural indicators of welfare. We outline four classes of analyses that can be used to quantify aspects of behavioural organization. The underlying principles, possible applications and limitations are described for: fractal analysis, temporal methods, social network analysis, and agent-based modelling and simulation. We hope to encourage further application of analyses of behavioural organization by highlighting potential applications in the assessment of animal welfare, and increasing awareness of the scope for the development of new mathematical methods in this area.     

缝制设备协同开发过程中冲突消解方法的研究

School of Mechanical Engineering, Taizhou University, Taizhou 318000, China     

Characterizing the dynamics of rubella relative to measles: the role of stochasticity

Rubella is a completely immunizing and mild infection in children. Understanding its behaviour is of considerable public health importance because of congenital rubella syndrome, which results from infection with rubella during early pregnancy and may entail a variety of birth defects. The recurrent dynamics of rubella are relatively poorly resolved, and appear to show considerable diversity globally. Here, we investigate the behaviour of a stochastic seasonally forced susceptible–infected–recovered model to characterize the determinants of these dynamics and illustrate patterns by comparison with measles. We perform a systematic analysis of spectra of stochastic fluctuations around stable attractors of the corresponding deterministic model and compare them with spectra from full stochastic simulations in large populations. This approach allows us to quantify the effects of demographic stochasticity and to give a coherent picture of measles and rubella dynamics, explaining essential differences in the recurrent patterns exhibited by these diseases. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of vaccination and changing birth rates as well as the persistence of these two childhood infections.     

Reduction of female copulatory damage by resilin represents evidence for tolerance in sexual conflict

Intergenomic evolutionary conflicts increase biological diversity. In sexual conflict, female defence against males is generally assumed to be resistance, which, however, often leads to trait exaggeration but not diversification. Here, we address whether tolerance, a female defence mechanism known from interspecific conflicts, exists in sexual conflict. We examined the traumatic insemination of female bed bugs via cuticle penetration by males, a textbook example of sexual conflict. Confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed large proportions of the soft and elastic protein resilin in the cuticle of the spermalege, the female defence organ. Reduced tissue damage and haemolymph loss were identified as adaptive female benefits from resilin. These did not arise from resistance because microindentation showed that the penetration force necessary to breach the cuticle was significantly lower at the resilin-rich spermalege than at other cuticle sites. Furthermore, a male survival analysis indicated that the spermalege did not impose antagonistic selection on males. Our findings suggest that the specific spermalege material composition evolved to tolerate the traumatic cuticle penetration. They demonstrate the importance of tolerance in sexual conflict and genitalia evolution, extend fundamental coevolution and speciation models and contribute to explaining the evolution of complexity. We propose that tolerance can drive trait diversity.     

Intrinsic dynamics of the boundary of a two-dimensional uniform vortex

The link between the shape of a two-dimensional, uniform vortex and self-induced velocities on its boundary is investigated through a contour-dynamics approach. The tangent derivative of the velocity along the boundary is written in a complex form, which depends on the analytic continuation of the tangent unit vector outside the vortex boundary. In this way, a classical analysis in terms of Schwarz's function of the boundary, due to Saffman, is extended to vortices of arbitrary shape. Time evolution of intrinsic quantities (tangent unit vector, curvature and Fourier's coefficients for the vortex shape) is also analyzed, showing that it depends on tangent derivatives of the velocities, only. Furthermore, a spectral method is proposed, aimed at investigating the dynamics of nearly-circular vortices in an inviscid, isochoric fluid. Comparisons with direct numerical simulations are also established.     

How strategic dynamics complicate the framing of alternatives in strategic environmental assessment: the case of the Danish natural gas planning

Unpredictable and complex developments challenge the application of strategic environmental assessment (SEA), for example, in terms of timing, prediction and relevance of assessments. In particular, multi-actor and unstructured strategic-level decision-making processes often seem to be characterised by unpredictable and complex changes. Despite the apparent implications, explorative investigations about how unpredictability influences SEA application in practice are rare. This article aims to shed light on contextual changes and reactions to such changes in practice by a case study of the specific SEA process of the Danish Natural Gas Security of Supply Plan. Special emphasis is given to the framing of alternatives in the SEA process, since alternatives are directly related to the contextual developments. Based on a participative approach, strategic dynamics are mapped and the reactions and concerns in the SEA team are outlined. The contribution of the article is enhanced empirical understanding of strategic dynamics and how it challenges SEA application.     

Closed-loop control of zebrafish response using a bioinspired robotic-fish in a preference test

In this paper, we study the response of zebrafish to a robotic-fish whose morphology and colour pattern are inspired by zebrafish. Experiments are conducted in a three-chambered instrumented water tank where a robotic-fish is juxtaposed with an empty compartment, and the preference of live subjects is scored as the mean time spent in the vicinity of the tank''s two lateral sides. The tail-beating of the robotic-fish is controlled in real-time based on feedback from fish motion to explore a spectrum of closed-loop systems, including proportional and integral controllers. Closed-loop control systems are complemented by open-loop strategies, wherein the tail-beat of the robotic-fish is independent of the fish motion. The preference space and the locomotory patterns of fish for each experimental condition are analysed and compared to understand the influence of real-time closed-loop control on zebrafish response. The results of this study show that zebrafish respond differently to the pattern of tail-beating motion executed by the robotic-fish. Specifically, the preference and behaviour of zebrafish depend on whether the robotic-fish tail-beating frequency is controlled as a function of fish motion and how such closed-loop control is implemented.     

Fast,high-throughput measurement of collective behaviour in a bacterial population

Swimming bacteria explore their environment by performing a random walk, which is biased in response to, for example, chemical stimuli, resulting in a collective drift of bacterial populations towards ‘a better life’. This phenomenon, called chemotaxis, is one of the best known forms of collective behaviour in bacteria, crucial for bacterial survival and virulence. Both single-cell and macroscopic assays have investigated bacterial behaviours. However, theories that relate the two scales have previously been difficult to test directly. We present an image analysis method, inspired by light scattering, which measures the average collective motion of thousands of bacteria simultaneously. Using this method, a time-varying collective drift as small as 50 nm s⁻¹ can be measured. The method, validated using simulations, was applied to chemotactic Escherichia coli bacteria in linear gradients of the attractant α-methylaspartate. This enabled us to test a coarse-grained minimal model of chemotaxis. Our results clearly map the onset of receptor methylation, and the transition from linear to logarithmic sensing in the bacterial response to an external chemoeffector. Our method is broadly applicable to problems involving the measurement of collective drift with high time resolution, such as cell migration and fluid flows measurements, and enables fast screening of tactic behaviours.     

The dispersion of birefringence in photoelastic materials

A spectral analyser was used to determine the variation with wavelength known as the dispersion of birefringence of the fringe constant f and the stress optic coefficient C for photoelastic materials. A disc was loaded diametrically and was subjected to the stress freezing thermal cycle. The intensity was measured along the diameter perpendicular to the load for wavelengths between 450 and 850 nm at 5 nm intervals. Using the theoretical solution to the stresses it was possible to calculate the stress optic coefficient for all wavelengths employed. A similar technique was used for an identical disc that was loaded at room temperature. It was found that the fringe constant was extremely linear with wavelength for both types of loading and for the materials CT200, CT1200 and MY750. The stress optic coefficient did not change much between sheets of the same material but was markedly different between materials. The dispersion of birefringence was found to be approximately constant but showed evidence of anomalous dispersion.     

Spectral Analysis of Pulsations in Flow Velocity Measured by an Acoustic Anemometer

The velocities of a gas-air flow measured by an acoustic anemometer, understood as a random process, are investigated. Such random components of the anemometer error as the measurement error and turbulent pulsations of the air flow are considered and their spectral composition is investigated. An experimentally obtained transient response of the acoustic anemometer along with a theoretical expression of the response in an approximation of the unit-step function by an inertial unit are presented.     

爆破地震波传播过程中的多普勒效应研究

为研究爆破施工中毫秒延时爆破作用的频谱特性,采用理论推导和数值模拟相结合的方法进行分析与计算。利用模态识别方法对炮孔间隔时间为25 ms的延时爆破振动数据进行频谱特性分析,得到爆源左、右两侧的爆破振动频率分别约为35 Hz和45 Hz的整数倍。进一步分析可得,这是由于爆破地震波在传播过程中发生多普勒效应,导致不同方向上的频率发生偏移,使得爆源两侧的爆破振动频率值存在差异。据此,实际爆破施工中可以利用多普勒效应进行爆破振动频率的调控。