Background: The House Sparrow(Passer domesticus) has undergone dramatic population declines in many parts of Europe.It has been widely hypothesised that a lack of cavity nest sites has contributed to this decline.Howe...Background: The House Sparrow(Passer domesticus) has undergone dramatic population declines in many parts of Europe.It has been widely hypothesised that a lack of cavity nest sites has contributed to this decline.However the idea of the House Sparrow being nest site limited is somewhat incompatible with the long history of nest site plasticity in the species.Methods: The nest-site selection in a population of non-native House Sparrows introduced to Australia from Europe just over 150 years ago was characterised.The prevalence of non-cavity nesting was quantified,and nest-site selection in terms of landscape and nesting structure were described.Results: Flexible nesting behaviors were reported over a range of different landscapes and a surprisingly high rate of nesting in vegetation(43%) was documented.Most nests found in vegetation were not in cavities,but were woven into the foliage and supported by branches and stems.Conclusion: The high rate of vegetation nesting indicates that in this introduced population,the House Sparrow is unlikely to be constrained by cavity-nest site availability.The high degree of nest site plasticity in the Australian population may suggest that European House Sparrows have the potential to shift away from their proclivity for cavity nests.Future work in Europe should examine the incidence of non-cavity nesting in House Sparrows more closely,and perhaps reconsider the idea that House Sparrows are nest-site constrained.展开更多
Abstract： The search for ＂new materials＂ to manufacture building elements for economical housing is the aim of this work. These materials are the following recycled plastics： Low-density polyethylene （LDPE）, rec...Abstract： The search for ＂new materials＂ to manufacture building elements for economical housing is the aim of this work. These materials are the following recycled plastics： Low-density polyethylene （LDPE）, recycled out of discarded soft drink packs： Polyethylene-terephthalate （PET）, recycled out of discarded soft drink bottles; and several plastics, from the printed films used like packages of candies （remainder of production plant by faults in the thickness of the films or in the inked process of themt. These conveniently grounded plastics were taken as ＂arids＂ to be mixed with Normal Portland cement, replacing heavy sand and gravel habitually used in these mixtures. These materials are used in constructive elements such as bricks, blocks and plates for economical houses closures or traditional construction. The developed constructive elements offer high thermal insulation, so they can be used in closures with a smaller thickness than conventional bricks and blocks. Besides, they have a lower specific weight than these traditiunal constructive elements. Recycling means lowering costs, making part of the environment contaminating waste useful and providing the unemployed and/or unqualified work force with jobs through uncomplicated technologies. Therefore, this recycling technology has an economic as well as an ecological purpose.展开更多
A new method of three-dimensional remeshing is proposed for rigid-plastic finiteelement analysis of a complicated forging process.The forging process of a cylindricalhousing has been simulated to show the effectivenes...A new method of three-dimensional remeshing is proposed for rigid-plastic finiteelement analysis of a complicated forging process.The forging process of a cylindricalhousing has been simulated to show the effectiveness of the scheme.The result ofsimulation shows that the computation can be effectively carried out by using the des-cribed remeshing scheme.展开更多
基金supported by Australian Research Council funding to SCG(FT130101253)an MQRES Ph.D scholarship to ELS from Macquarie University
文摘Background: The House Sparrow(Passer domesticus) has undergone dramatic population declines in many parts of Europe.It has been widely hypothesised that a lack of cavity nest sites has contributed to this decline.However the idea of the House Sparrow being nest site limited is somewhat incompatible with the long history of nest site plasticity in the species.Methods: The nest-site selection in a population of non-native House Sparrows introduced to Australia from Europe just over 150 years ago was characterised.The prevalence of non-cavity nesting was quantified,and nest-site selection in terms of landscape and nesting structure were described.Results: Flexible nesting behaviors were reported over a range of different landscapes and a surprisingly high rate of nesting in vegetation(43%) was documented.Most nests found in vegetation were not in cavities,but were woven into the foliage and supported by branches and stems.Conclusion: The high rate of vegetation nesting indicates that in this introduced population,the House Sparrow is unlikely to be constrained by cavity-nest site availability.The high degree of nest site plasticity in the Australian population may suggest that European House Sparrows have the potential to shift away from their proclivity for cavity nests.Future work in Europe should examine the incidence of non-cavity nesting in House Sparrows more closely,and perhaps reconsider the idea that House Sparrows are nest-site constrained.
文摘Abstract： The search for ＂new materials＂ to manufacture building elements for economical housing is the aim of this work. These materials are the following recycled plastics： Low-density polyethylene （LDPE）, recycled out of discarded soft drink packs： Polyethylene-terephthalate （PET）, recycled out of discarded soft drink bottles; and several plastics, from the printed films used like packages of candies （remainder of production plant by faults in the thickness of the films or in the inked process of themt. These conveniently grounded plastics were taken as ＂arids＂ to be mixed with Normal Portland cement, replacing heavy sand and gravel habitually used in these mixtures. These materials are used in constructive elements such as bricks, blocks and plates for economical houses closures or traditional construction. The developed constructive elements offer high thermal insulation, so they can be used in closures with a smaller thickness than conventional bricks and blocks. Besides, they have a lower specific weight than these traditiunal constructive elements. Recycling means lowering costs, making part of the environment contaminating waste useful and providing the unemployed and/or unqualified work force with jobs through uncomplicated technologies. Therefore, this recycling technology has an economic as well as an ecological purpose.
文摘A new method of three-dimensional remeshing is proposed for rigid-plastic finiteelement analysis of a complicated forging process.The forging process of a cylindricalhousing has been simulated to show the effectiveness of the scheme.The result ofsimulation shows that the computation can be effectively carried out by using the des-cribed remeshing scheme.
