Radiation Balance Components of Maize Hybrids Grown at Various Plant Densities

Components of the energy and heat balances were examined in two maize hybrids grown at three different plant densities (40, 70 and 100 thousand plants per hectare). One of the hybrids was drought tolerant, while the other was bred for cultivation under irrigated conditions. An increase in plant density influenced not only the size of the leaf area, but also the distribution of the leaves at various plant heights. The extinction coefficient, which provides a quantification of radiation penetration, was higher in the irrigated treatments. By contrast to the other two treatments, the plant canopy in the thinly sown stands remained open throughout the vegetation period, and thus behaved quite differently to the closed stands, making it impossible to compare them. Smaller albedo values were recorded for the hybrid bred for irrigation and in thinly sown stands. The low plant density allowed more energy to reach the soil, from which it was reflected, making a considerable contribution to the final temperature in the stand. The latent heat, in keeping with the quantity of water transpired, was the greatest in the densely sown stands. There was little difference between the latent heat values of the normal and dense stands in either hybrid, indicating that they both had a similar sensitivity to increased stand density. If sufficient water is available it would appear that the stand density could be increased even for the drought-tolerant hybrid.     

Historical range of variability in eastern Cascades forests,Washington, USA

The historical range of variability (HRV) has been suggested as a coarse filter approach to maintain ecosystem sustainability and resiliency. The historical range of variability in forest age structure for the central eastern Cascade Range in Washington State, USA was developed from historical fire return intervals and the manner in which fire acted as both cyclic and stochastic processes. The proportions of seven forest structural stages calculated through these processes were applied to the area of each forest series within the central eastern Cascades landscape. Early successional forest stages were more common in high elevation forest than low elevation forest. The historical proportion of old growth and late successional forest varied from 38 to 63 percent of the forested landscape. These process-based estimates are consistent with those developed from forest structural information. HRV is a valuable planning tool for ecosystem conservation purposes, but must be applied to real landscapes with consideration of both temporal and spatial scale. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

基于粒子群算法的海洋平台热介质锅炉PID参数优化

文中采用串级控制作为海洋平台热介质锅炉的控制方案，采用粒子群算法对PID控制器的比例带啄、积分时间Ti进行最优化，从而实现热介质锅炉温度的自动控制。通过粒子群算法进行串级控制系统PID参数优化，提高了控制系统的控制精度、可靠性、稳定性，具有工业应用价值。     

基于GC-Cascade R-CNN的梨叶病斑计数方法

为提高梨叶片病害发生程度诊断的效率和准确性,本文提出基于全局上下文级联R-CNN网络（Global context Cascade R-CNN,GC-Cascade R-CNN）的梨叶病斑计数方法。模型的主干特征提取网络嵌入全局上下文模块（Global context feature model, GC-Model）,建立有效的长距离和通道依赖,增强目标特征信息。引入特征金字塔网络（Feature pyramid network, FPN）融合浅层细节特征和深层丰富语义特征。使用ROI Align替换ROI Pooling进行区域特征聚集,增强目标特征表达。最后利用多层级联网络对目标区域进行边框回归和分类,完成病斑计数任务。在梨叶病斑图像测试中,模型的各类病斑平均精确率均值（Mean average precision, mAP）达89.4%,检测单幅图像平均耗时为0.347 s。结果表明,模型能够有效地从梨叶片病害图像中检测出多类病斑目标,尤其对叶片炭疽病斑检测效果提升显著;不同种类梨叶片病害病斑计数值与真实值回归实验决定系数R²均大于0.92,表明模型病斑计数...     

基于循环残差注意力的群养生猪实例分割

目的 在群养环境下,实现生猪粘连、杂物遮挡等不同条件下生猪个体的高精度分割。方法 对真实养殖场景下的8栏日龄20~105 d共45头群养生猪进行研究,以移动相机拍摄图像为数据源,并执行改变亮度、加入高斯噪声等数据增强操作获取标注图片3 834张。探究基于2个骨干网络ResNet50、ResNet101与2个任务网络Mask R-CNN、Cascade mask R-CNN交叉结合的多种模型,并将循环残差注意力(RRA)思想引入2个任务网络模型中,在不显著增加计算量的前提下提升模型特征提取能力、提高分割精度。结果 选用Mask R-CNN-ResNet50比Cascade mask R-CNN-ResNet50在AP_0.5、AP_0.75、AP_0.5-0.95和AP_{0.5-0.95-large}指标上分别提升4.3%、3.5%、2.2%和2.2%;加入不同数量的RRA模块以探究其对各个任务模型预测性能影响,试验表明加入2个RRA模块后对各个任务模型的提升效果最为明显。结论 加入2个RRA模块的Mask R-CNN-ResNet50模型可以更精确、有效地对不同场景群养生猪进行分割,为后续生猪身份识别与行为分析提供模型支撑。     

Effects of time and concentration on mortality of phosphine-resistant Sitophilus oryzae (L) fumigated with phosphine

The effects of exposure period and phosphine concentration on mortality of susceptible and resistant Sitophilus oryzae (L) were investigated. Although S oryzae is one of the world's most serious pests of stored grain there are few data on the practical significance of phosphine resistance in this species. The strains investigated were an Australian susceptible strain, a homozygous resistant strain exhibiting a level of resistance common in Australia and an unselected field strain from China with a much stronger resistance. Fumigations were carried out at 25 degrees C on adults and mixed-age cultures. For adults of all three strains and mixed-age cultures of the susceptible and resistant Australian strains, the relationship between concentration and time could be described by equations of the form Cnt = k. In all cases n < 1, indicating that time was a more important variable than concentration. In all fumigations of adults the resistant strains were harder to kill than the susceptible strain. However, in fumigations of mixed-age cultures, which contained the tolerant pupal stage, the difference between susceptible and resistant strains was more pronounced at lower concentrations than higher concentrations. For example, at 0.02 mg litre-1 the estimated LT99.9 for mixed-age cultures of the Australian resistant strain (27 days) is 3.4 times that of the susceptible strain (8 days), but at 1 mg litre-1 there is no difference between the two strains (4 days). Limited data on the Chinese resistant strain supported this finding. Twenty-three days exposure at 0.02 mg litre-1 had no effect on mixed-age cultures of this strain, but there were no survivors after 5 days exposure to 1 mg litre-1.     

Effect of road density on abundance of white-footed mice

While several studies have demonstrated that roads can act as barriers to small mammal movement, the relationship between road density and small mammal abundance has not yet been investigated. In southeastern Ontario, Peromyscus leucopus (white-footed mice) suffer high over-winter mortality rates, resulting in small springtime populations and frequent local extinctions. Peromyscus leucopus movement is known to be inhibited by roads, which should result in lower rates of immigration into and recolonization of habitats in landscapes with high road density. We tested two predictions: (1) Forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities have a higher chance of P. leucopus being absent during the early spring than forest sites situated in landscapes with low road densities and (2) P. leucopus populations during the summer are smaller in forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities than in landscapes with low road densities. We sampled P. leucopus in focal patches within nineteen landscapes (7 rural, low-road-density landscapes; 7 rural, high-road-density landscapes; 5 urban landscapes). There was no significant relationship between road density and the presence/absence of P. leucopus during the early spring. We found a significant positive effect of road density on P. leucopus relative abundance during the summer, even when we excluded the urban landscapes and based the analysis on only the 14 rural landscapes. Our results suggest that any negative effect of roads on P. leucopus populations, created by their inhibition to moving across roads, is far outweighed by some positive effect of roads on P. leucopus abundance. We suggest that the two most likely explanations are that roads are positively correlated with an important as-yet-undetermined component of habitat quality, or that roads positively affect P. leucopus by negatively affecting their predators.     

Revision of Southern Hemisphere taxa referred to Fosterella (Crustacea: Cirripedia), and their extinction in response to Pleistocene cooling

Extensive barnacle coquinas (barnamols) formed around New Zealand's North and Chatham Islands during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The inner‐shelf megabalanine Fosterella is the primary constituent of these lithofacies, which also include epifaunal bivalves, bryozoans and less modified balanids like Notobalanus and Notomegabalanus. The status of genus Fosterella is reviewed, 3 species are retained and a new genus, Porobalanus, is proposed for Fosterella hennigi, a species restricted to the Early Pliocene of Cockburn Island, Antarctica. Significantly, Fosterella did not survive the New Zealand Pleistocene, although Notobalanus and Notomegabalanus, which have fossil records extending back to the Early Miocene, remain important components of present day cool‐temperate Southern Hemisphere faunas. Extinction of Fosterella, in shelf waters off Argentina, is explained through a combination of changing circulatory and sedimentary regimes, competition for food and space, predation and physiological constraints. The driver of these factors was rapid regional cooling. Zoobank registration: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:DBB1CB34‐83E4‐48BA‐AA10‐81823017F37A     

Reconstructing the history of the sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) in the Mediterranean Sea

1. Sharks are globally exposed to several anthropogenic threats, which, in many cases, have severely reduced their distribution and have impacted populations. In the Mediterranean Sea, because of its long history of exploitation and the relatively short span of scientific monitoring, reconstructing shark baselines is challenging. Many vulnerable species declined in population abundance and geographic distribution before it was possible to adequately track these changes. Consequently, for many of these species, current conservation assessments are now suffering from a severe case of shifting baseline syndrome, whereby their historical occurrence in the area is questioned.
2. The sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) is one of these cases. Characterized by high philopatry, restricted home range, and low interchange between populations, its Mediterranean population may have been severely impacted by the high historical fishing pressure in the region before scientific monitoring began.
3. In this study, the history of the abundance and distribution of C. taurus in the Mediterranean Sea was reconstructed through a comprehensive search of occurrence records in the literature and in museum collections. Between 1810 and 2008, 31 occurrence records and 54 publications provided information on the presence of the species in the area. These records were sparse but systematic over time and indicated occurrence hot spots in the south‐western Mediterranean Sea and in the eastern Adriatic Sea.
4. The presence of ten sightings of juveniles from a total of 18 sightings with length information suggested local parturition. Habitat and extinction models indicate that the area has suitable oceanographic conditions for the occurrence of the species and that the species cannot be considered extinct in the Mediterranean Sea. Our study suggests that there is still hope for the recovery of the species and underlines the crucial role of historical investigations to reconstruct the history of large elasmobranchs in the Mediterranean Sea.