We present a complete hardware and software system for collecting and quantifying continuous measures of feeding behaviors in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The FLIC (Fly Liquid-Food Interaction Counter) detects analog electronic signals as brief as 50 µs that occur when a fly makes physical contact with liquid food. Signal characteristics effectively distinguish between different type...

We investigated one causal explanation for geographic variation in clutch size and aggregative feeding of the pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor. Populations in California lay larger clutches than those in Texas, and larger feeding aggregations grow at an accelerated rate on the California host plant. Using reciprocal transplant experiments with larvae from California and Texas populations, ...

During evolution, the ability to overeat and store the extra energy as glycogen and lipids in specialized tissues must have conferred a reproductive advantage by releasing animals from the need to eat constantly, enabling them to engage in behaviors that improved reproductive success. Mechanisms that inhibited ingestive behavior might have been most adaptive when they caused individuals to stop...

This study was aimed to observe the correlations among egg, larvae and maternal characteristics of Persian sturgeon. A total of 41 females were used and the variables including fertilization rate, incubation survival rate, larvae survival rate during yolk sac absorption (before feeding), and larvae survival rate after first feeding were determined. As a result, fertilization rate was positively...

Most complex behaviors appear to be governed by internal motivational states or drives that modify an animal's responses to its environment. It is therefore of considerable interest to understand the neural basis of these motivational states. Drawing upon work on the neural basis of feeding in the marine mollusc Aplysia, we have developed a heterogeneous artificial neural network for controllin...

CONTEXT Postoperative emesis is common after pyloromyotomy. Although postoperative feeding is likely to be an influencing factor, there is no consensus on optimal feeding. OBJECTIVE To compare the effect of feeding regimens on clinical outcomes of infants after pyloromyotomy. DATA SOURCES Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled T...

Feeding practices during early childhood play an important aetiological role in early childhood caries (ECC). The role of feeding practices in causation of ECC is debated. The objective of this study was to assess the aetiological role of feeding practices on ECC. A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted at a paediatric unit in Sri Lanka. Two hundred and eighty-five children between 36...

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate effects of barley grains particle size on ruminal pH and ammonia concentration of rams (experiment 1) and carcass characteristics (experiment 2) of male lambs fed high urea diet. Treatments in two experiments were (1: basal diet + whole barley grains, 2: basal diet + ground barley grains with a 5 mm screen, 3: basal diet + ground barley grains with a 3...

OBJECTIVE To examine the effect of neonatal intensive care unit environmental characteristics (perceived levels of light and sound, and time of day) in open unit wards and single-family rooms (SFRs) on oral feeding outcomes in preterm infants. DESIGN Data were collected at each scheduled oral feeding for 87 preterm infants from the first oral feeding until discharge. Data included the prescri...

The aim of this study was to investigate the determinants of breast-feeding according to the characteristics of mother and her child. Cox proportional hazard model technique has been employed to investigate the determinants of breast-feeding. The data were utilized from a sample survey of Palpa and Rupandehi districts of rural Nepal. The study revealed that the current age of mothers, their edu...