Abstract Relationships between body shape and escape performance are well established for many species. However, organisms can face multiple selection pressures that might impose competing demands. Many fishes use fast starts escaping predator attacks, whereas some species of gobiid have evolved the ability to climb waterfalls out predator-dense habitats. The ancestral ‘powerburst’ climbing mec...

A lot of research has been conducted on achieving realistic fluid simulations: waves, flow, waterfalls, etc. This paper focuses on a less talked about aspect of fluid simulation: the behavior of liquids in zero gravity. Unlike in most other situations which are dominated by gravity, surface tension becomes the key phenomenon of the simulation. A spring-connected system of particles is used to m...

BACKGROUND The influence of visual exposure to health-related behaviours, such as smoking, is increasingly acknowledged in the public health literature. Social contagion or normalisation is thought to operate through the visibility of those behaviours. There has been a lack of systematic and comprehensive approaches to quantifying visual exposure to these behaviours over a relatively large geog...

In this study, we measured the mobility distributions of cluster and intermediate ions with an ion spectrometer near a waterfall. We observed that the concentration of negative 1.5–10 nm ions was one-hundred fold higher than a reference point 100 m away from the waterfall. Also, the concentration of positive intermediate ions was found to be higher than that at the reference point by a factor o...

Maximising efficiency From 2012–2016, the Colombian Ministry of Health researched and created maps showing where trachoma was most prevalent in its Amazonian districts. This was needed to identify all people at risk of trachoma, and to understand where resources had to be allocated. Reaching indigenous communities in the Amazonian districts presented major logistical challenges and required sub...

Juveniles of three species of Hawaiian gobiid fishes climb waterfalls during migration to adult habitats using two kinematically distinct patterns: Awaous guamensis and Lentipes concolor use rapid, intermittent bouts of axial undulation (‘powerbursts’), whereas Sicyopterus stimpsoni inches up waterfalls by alternately attaching oral and pelvic suckers to the substrate. Despite the differing kin...

BACKGROUND The Atlantic Forest is globally one of the priority ecoregions for biodiversity conservation. In Argentina, it is represented by the Paranense Forest, which covers a vast area of Misiones Province between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. The Uruguay River is a global hotspot of freshwater gastropod diversity, here mainly represented by Tateidae (genus Potamolithus) and to a lesser exte...

Terrain viewshed analysis based on the digital elevation model (DEM) is of significant application value. A lot algorithms have been proposed, including R3 as accurate one and others efficient ones. The algorithm because its comprehensive but time-consuming computation, while are due to proper approximation. However, no capable taking advantage both until which a ‘proximity-direction-elevation’...