Various approaches of incorporating chaos into artificial neural networks have recently been proposed, and used successfully to solve combinatorial optimisation problems. This paper investigates three such approaches: 1) Chen & Aihara's transiently chaotic neural network with chaotic simulated annealing, which has a gradually decaying negative selfcoupling term; 2) Wang & Smith's chaotic simula...

Evolutionary algorithms have proven to be robust tools in data processing for modeling dynamic, non-linear and complex processes due to their flexible mathematical structure to yield optimal results even with imprecise, ambiguity and noise at its input. The study is a soft-computing heuristic-based, hybrid approach that aims to provide computational intelligence via solving optimization task. T...

in the present report, diagnosis and treatment of a case with follicular ovarian cysts in a 5-year-old persian queen cat is described. in response to palpation of spines, the queen cat presented herself in lordosis and danced up and down with her rear legs. trans-abdominal ultrasonography examination showed 2 cysts  in the left ovary of the queen. serum estrogen assay indicated elevated level o...

Deformed wing virus is an important contributor to honey bee colony losses. Frequently queen failure is reported as a cause for colony loss. Here we examine whether sexual transmission during multiple matings of queens is a possible way of virus infection in queens. In an environment with high prevalence of deformed wing virus, queens (n = 30) were trapped upon their return from natural mating ...

The modern queens maintenance systems are based on the use of artificial insemination, queens’ maintenance in the so called „queens bank” , in this way assuring an increased economic efficiency in beekeeping. This study aimed to compare the economic efficiency of the implementation of A.I. to various queen bees maintenance systems. Three alternatives have been taken into account: V1-a queen bee...

Reproductive division of labour is a hallmark of eusociality, but disentangling the underlying proximate mechanisms can be challenging. In bumblebees, workers isolated from the queen can activate their ovaries and lay haploid, male eggs. We investigated if volatile, contact, visual or behavioural cues produced by the queen or brood mediate reproductive dominance in Bombus impatiens. Exposure to...

Pleometrosis, or colony founding via multiple queens, occurs in a localized population of the seedharvester ant Pogonomyrmex californicus. In an apparently unusual secondary modification, queens of P. californicus are also obligate foragers; that is, queens must forage to garner the resources necessary to rear their first brood. Laboratory experiments measured the costs and benefits of pleometr...

Rima Petroniene, MD, PhD, Elena Dubcenco, MD, Jeffrey P. Baker, MD, FRCP(C), Ralph E. Warren, MD, FRCP(C), Cathy J. Streutker, MD, FRCP(C), Geoffrey W. Gardiner, MD, FRCP(C), Khursheed N. Jeejeebhoy, PhD, MBBS, FRCP(C)* Division of Gastroenterology, St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto, 30 Bond Street 3-035, Queen Wing, Toronto, Ontario M5B 1W8, Canada Division of Pathology, St....

Variation in queen number alters the genetic structure of social insect colonies, which in turn affects patterns of kin-selected conflict and cooperation. Theory suggests that shifts from single- to multiple-queen colonies are often associated with other changes in the breeding system, such as higher queen turnover, more local mating, and restricted dispersal. These changes may restrict gene fl...