Many chameleons, and panther chameleons in particular, have the remarkable ability to exhibit complex and rapid colour changes during social interactions such as male contests or courtship. It is generally interpreted that these changes are due to dispersion/aggregation of pigment-containing organelles within dermal chromatophores. Here, combining microscopy, photometric videography and photoni...

Except for a few observations by von Frisch (1911), Dijkgraaf (1949), and Wichers (cited by Healey, 1957), no work has been done on the central nervous control of colour change, anterior to the medulla oblongata. Von Frisch performed a series of experiments in which he stimulated various parts of the minnow brain. After negative results from the cerebellum and the optic tectum he concluded that...

Colour plays a central role in thematic cartography. Despite this, using colour effectively on maps is surprisingly difŽcult and often exceeds the skill and understanding of novice mapmakers. On the one hand, a ‘good’ colour scheme needs to be attractive. On the other hand, the colour scheme must also support the message of the map and be appropriately matched to the nature of the data. Moreove...

Colour in spaces plays an important role on inhabitants’ mood. In interior design colour has been used to decorate spaces in order to lift and change mood in people. It has been already proved that certain colours relax people while other colours have an opposite effect. However, not all the colours have been researched, and especially their effects on teenagers’ moods have not been researched....

OBJECTIVE To determine the degree of liking of the Oportunidades programme dietary supplements (DS)--purees and beverages--added with different iron salts (IS): reduced iron (RI), ferrous sulphate (FS) or ferrous fumarate (FF) during 24 weeks of storage. MATERIALS AND METHODS The DS were evaluated through a hedonic scale for aroma, flavour and colour attributes; at time zero and every eight w...

A population of praying mantids Mantis religiosa L. was studied in a submontane habitat near Vicenza in Northern Italy. Sixtythree mantids were observed and studied in the field with the mark and recapture method to obtain ecological information about the coloration patterns, habitat preferences and strategies of this species. Additionally, a population of mantids was housed in artificial condi...

Basically digital video is a sequence of still images, displayed at a constant frame rate. Simplest adaptation of still image colour correction algorithm into the digital video is to use the same algorithm frame by frame in the video sequence. However, this kind of approach does not lead to satisfactory results. The sources of the problems are the temporal continuity of the video frames and dif...

Climate warming leads to a decrease in biodiversity. Organisms can deal with the new prevailing environmental conditions by one of two main routes, namely evolving new genetic adaptations or through phenotypic plasticity to modify behaviour and physiology. Melanin-based colouration has important functions in animals including a role in camouflage and thermoregulation, protection against UV-radi...

BACKGROUND Plumage coloration is important for bird communication, most notably in sexual signalling. Colour is often considered a good quality indicator, and the expression of exaggerated colours may depend on individual condition during moult. After moult, plumage coloration has been deemed fixed due to the fact that feathers are dead structures. Still, many plumage colours change after moult...

The algorithm presented in this paper is comprised of three main stages: (1) classification of the image sequence and, in the case of a moving camera, parametric motion estimation, (2) change detection having as reference a fixed frame, an appropriately selected frame or a displaced frame, and (3) object localization using local colour features. The image sequence classification is based on sta...