Antennal epicuticular structure of camel crickets (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) for identifying the prey of Mustella sibrica Pallas

Camel crickets (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) are a group of wingless and humpbacked Orthopteran insects. They are closed relatives to katydids and crickets;they were called spider crickets somewhere because of their long legs. Camel cricket plays an important role in the food web in various ecosystems. In the forest ecosystem, they live in the ground level of forestry under litters and fallen leaves, and some of them live beneath the log and hid themselves under loosen tree barks. They feed on decomposing organic substances and serve as decomposers in the food chain. It is a very common insect prey to insectivorous animals in natural and artificial vegetation. Guandaushi (GDS) is the experimental forest station of National Chung Hsing University, as the study site of long term ecological research (LTER) in Taiwan. And the camel cricket became an important subject and a dominant insect group in the LTER studies. They are the major parts of the insect preys of vertebrates, especially to the insectivorous mammals. According to our previous publication, 32.2% of the insect preys of Mustela sibirica Pallas are camel crickets in GDS forest ecosystem. There were 5 morpho-species of camel crickets by the characters of antennal epicuticular characters. The camel cricket was collected from various ways according to the LTER study during 1995-1998. The morphology of antennal epicuticular structure from totally 60 individuals was observed by using SEM. The epicuticular sculpture was described and classified into Type I and Type II by the SEM photographs. Type I has 8 patterns and Type II has 5 patterns in this study. The illustration and the pictorial key were provided here as the tool for further application. The morpho-species could not be identified due to the remainder being fragmented while examined. After the study, the SEM antennal epicuticular structures were classified and identified based upon the antennae sample of the morphospecies from the specimens of the 5 camel crickets which were collected from GDS forest ecosystem in this study. This is a part of the fundamental study for the protocol of ecosystem study. The protocol for identifying the insectivorous animal’s prey by the insect fragment of food remainders is necessary. One more, there were 7 of the 13 patterns of antennal epicuticular structure applied to analysis the 5 morpho-species provided as the case study for taxonomy.

Motion Characteristics of the Appendages of Mole Crickets during Burrowing

Mole crickets,Gryllotalpa orientalis,have a pair of fully specialized forelegs for burrowing and employ an efficient underground excavating pattern,which provides excellent biological example for design of bionic underground excavation equipment.In this study,the excavating pattern and kinematic features of mole crickets were obtained by using high-speed motion capture system and employing a transparent hydrogel as the analogue for soil.The two-dimensional motion characteristics of the forelegs of mole crickets during burrowing were captured and analyzed.The results show that the forelegs of the mole cricket employ a unique excavating pattern,which consists of foreword digging and horizontal expansion.We label this pattern a digging-expanding mode.An excavating cycle includes the digging and expanding motion of the forelegs,rotation caused by the midlegs and hindlegs,and forward thrust by the hindlegs.The excavating motion of the left and right forelegs is alternately carried out.This study can inspire the design of bionic tunnelling mechanisms and underground excavation equipment.

Visible Light and Its Influence on the Embryonic Viability of the Cricket Acheta domesticus

During in vitro fertilization, human embryos are incubated without light, and these conditions do not ensure embryo survival. This study explored whether environmental conditions can influence the embryo viability rates of the house cricket, Acheta domesticus. In particular, the experiment tested what colors of visible light provide the best incubation conditions to ensure cricket embryo viability. The concept was to use house cricket embryos to represent human embryos. Cricket embryos were chosen as their eggs have soft outer membrane casings and resemble human embryos during the first few days after fertilization. During the experiment, the adult crickets laid their eggs into one of six soil-filled boxes called substrates. Each substrate was placed into one of six storage containers filled with adult crickets and lit with a different colored visible light (red, yellow, green, blue, white, or no light). After two days of breeding, the egg-filled substrates were removed from the adult crickets and placed in another storage container of the same color light. After incubation under heat-emitting lamps and under one of six light colors, nymphs were counted after hatching to determine embryo viability. After three trials, the red light provided the significantly highest viability rate, with yellow and no light being comparable seconds. The green, blue, and white lights showed significantly lower viability rates than no visible light. My results raise the speculation that exposing fertilized mammal eggs to visible light colors might have the same effects during the in vitro fertilization process.

Cricket室内定位系统的研究与改进

目前,人们对室内定位与导航的需求越来越大,如在展厅、图书馆、仓库、超市等室内环境中,用户希望持有可移动设备能够自由定位并导航,因此,该文主要目的是介绍基于超声波技术和射频技术的Cricket室内定位系统的工作原理、优缺点并提出改进方法;通过引入节能机制的方法,改进Cricket室内定位系统的信道分配策略,得出定位系统能耗和成本的结果,最终能在一定程度上降低Cricket室内定位系统的能耗和成本,保证节点之间的公平性。

基于相位叠加的Cricket系统信标节点识别方法

对于Cricket室内超声波定位系统,能否正确识别不同信标节点发射的信号对接收器的定位至关重要。本文根据压电陶瓷的振动机制和声波在空气中的传播特性,推导出超声波发射器和接收器的振动方程,提出了一种基于超声驱动信号相位叠加的方法识别不同信标节点发出的超声信号。从原理验证、软件仿真、实验验证三个方面证明了叠加识别法可以有效地识别Cricket系统中不同的信标节点。

Robot Pheromone Communication Using Vortex Ring Transmission

Unpredictable air movements have proved to be a problem in previous studies investigating robot communication by means of airborne pheromone chemicals. The project described in this paper investigates the use of air vortex rings as a means of carrying pheromone chemicals between transmitting and receiving robots. Sensitivity to chemicals including pheromones released by conspecifics is essential for many aspects of an insect's life. They assist in finding food, locating a mate, avoiding danger and help coordinate the activities of social insects. In the future, autonomous robots will be challenged by many situations similar to those that face insects and other simple creatures. Chemical communication may prove useful for these robots as well. This paper describes the equipment developed for generating and detecting vortex rings. Results of experiments involving location and tracking of a sequence of pheromone vortex rings are also presented.

Kinematics of Terrestrial Locomotion in Mole Cricket Gryllotalpa orientalis

The fore leg of mole cricket （Orthoptera： Glyllotalpidae） has developed into claw for digging and excavating. As the result of having a well-suited body and appendages for living underground, mole cricket still needs to manoeuvre on land in some cases with some kinds of gait. In this paper, the three-dimensional kinematics information of mole cricket in terrestrial walking was recorded by using a high speed 3D video recording system. The mode and the gait of the terrestrial walking mole cricket were investigated by analyzing the kinematics parameters, and the kinematics coupling disciplines of each limb and body were discussed. The results show that the locomotion gait of mole cricket in terrestrial walking belongs to a distinctive alternating tripod gait. We also found that the fore legs of a mole cricket are not as effective as that of common hexapod insects, its middle legs and body joints act more effective in walking and turning which compensate the function of fore legs. The terrestrial lo-comotion of mole cricket is the result of biological coupling of three pairs of legs, the distinctive alternating tripod gait and the trunk locomotion.

Sudden cardiac death following blunt chest trauma： commotio cordis

BACKGROUND：There have been numerous reports of sudden cardiac death attributable to the condition of commotio cordis. Primarily, these are reports from the USA. Although three Australian cases have been mentioned in the published literature, the present case appears to be the first described Australian case. METHODS：A man was brought to the Emergency Department after sudden collapse while playing cricket. His medical history was suggestive of hitting by a cricket ball while batting. RESULTS：The epidemiology and mechanism of arrhythmia induction in commofio cordis are discussed. The emergency management of commotio cordis is outlined. CONCLUSIONS： Commofio cordis is rare in sports （and Emergency Medicine）. However it has a high mortality rate, and rapid recognition of the condition allows early defibrillation, generally with a good outcome. The improvement of participant care is recommended at community and other sport events.

Measuring the Performance of Teams in the Indian Premier League

In this paper, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), we have measured the technical efficiency of cricket teams in the Indian Premier League. Taking the data for the 2009 season, the input used by the teams is approached by the total expenses which include players’ wage bill and wage of the support staff and other miscellaneous expenses. Output is measured by the points awarded, net run rate, profit and revenues. Efficiency scores are highly correlated with the performance in the league with a few exception, and when decomposing inefficiency into technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency it can be shown that the largest part of inefficiency can be explained by suboptimal scale of production and ineffficient transformation of inputs into outputs.

Evolution-Based Performance Prediction of Star Cricketers

Cricket databases contain rich and useful information to examine and forecasting patterns and trends.This paper predicts Star Cricketers(SCs)from batting and bowling domains by employing supervised machine learning models.With this aim,each player’s performance evolution is retrieved by using effective features that incorporate the standard performance measures of each player and their peers.Prediction is performed by applying Bayesianrule,function and decision-tree-based models.Experimental evaluations are performed to validate the applicability of the proposed approach.In particular,the impact of the individual features on the prediction of SCs are analyzed.Moreover,the category and model-wise feature evaluations are also conducted.A cross-validation mechanism is applied to validate the performance of our proposed approach which further confirms that the incorporated features are statistically significant.Finally,leading SCs are extracted based on their performance evolution scores and their standings are cross-checked with those provided by the International Cricket Council.

Risk factors for hamstring injuries in Australian male professional cricket players

Background:Injuries to the hamstring are relatively common in professional cricketers(as they are in many team sports) and have increased in incidence in the "T20 era"(introduction of 20-over matches) of cricket since 2006.Methods:This study analyzed incidence of hamstring injury in the various elite male match types over a 20-year period(1995–1996 to 2014–2015seasons).Risk factors for hamstring strain were assessed using a multivariate logistic regression analysis technique.Results:There were 276 match time-loss hamstring injuries recorded over a 20-year period at the Australian state or national player level,of which170 occurred in one of 40,145 player match sets.The overall rate of match onset rate was 22.5 hamstring injuries per 1000 team days.Fast bowling onset injuries were the highest subcategory at a rate of 10.9 injuries per 1000 team days,although batting onset injuries were particularly common in 50-over(one day) international matches.Significant risk factors in logistic regression analysis,in addition to hamstring injury history,were being a fast bowler relative risk(RR) 2.5(95% confidence interval(CI):1.3–4.5) and playing a match in Australia RR 2.3(95%CI:1.3–3.9).Conclusion:Fast bowlers suffer more hamstring injuries than other playing roles in cricket,particularly in First Class(multi-day) cricket.Batsmen are more likely to get injured in 50-over(one day) cricket.Playing in Australia(compared to overseas venues) leads to increased risk of hamstring injury.

Context Based Adoption of Ranking and Indexing Measures for Cricket Team Ranks

There is an international cricket governing body that ranks the expertise of all the cricket playing nations,known as the International Cricket Council(ICC).The ranking system followed by the ICC relies on the winnings and defeats of the teams.The model used by the ICC to implement rankings is deficient in certain key respects.It ignores key factors like winning margin and strength of the opposition.Various measures of the ranking concept are presented in this research.The proposed methods adopt the concepts of h-Index and PageRank for presenting more comprehensive ranking metrics.The proposed approaches not only rank the teams on their losing/winning stats but also take into consideration the margin of winning and the quality of the opposition.Three cricket team ranking techniques are presented i.e.,(1)Cricket Team-Index(ct-index),(2)Cricket Team Rank(CTR)and(3)Weighted Cricket Team Rank(WCTR).The proposed metrics are validated through the collection of cricket dataset,extracted from Cricinfo,having instances for all the three formats of the game i.e.,T20 International(T20i),One Day International(ODI)and Test matches.The comparative analysis between the proposed and existing techniques,for all the three formats,is presented as well.

A new Net Resource Factor Based Alternative Method to Calculate Revised Target in Interrupted One Day Cricket Matches

This paper proposes an alternative method to calculate the revised target in interrupted 50 overs One Day international (ODI) cricket matches. Existing Duckworth Lewis (D/L) method and its modified versions only take available batting resources of the batting team into account and ignore the individual player’s excellence to calculate the revised target. Here, it is worth mentioning that individual player’s excellence varies in reality, and therefore quality of the available resources may affect the revised target significantly. Further in D/L method, revised target calculation depends only on the available batting resources of the batting team and does not consider the available bowling resources of the fielding team. Proposed method overcomes these two shortcomings by taking individual player’s excellence and available bowling resources of the fielding team into account. Individual player’s excellence has been determined by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a well-known non parametric mathematical programming technique. A new idea of “Net Resource Factor” has been introduced to capture both batting and bowling resources to calculate the revised target. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to incorporate the ability of individual players and bowling resources of the fielding team for calculating the revised target. A comparative analysis between the proposed method and D/L method has been carried out using the data of real ODI matches held in the past. To facilitate ground application of the proposed method, a flow chart and a “Net Resource Factor Table” have been designed.

Robowler:Design and development of a cricket bowling machine ensuring ball seam position

The art of cricket bowling is complex and arduous owing to the run-up and ball release time energy requirement to achieve speed and variations. Therefore, human bowlers cannot bowl for extended periods and numerous mechanical bowling machines have been built to help batsmen improve their skills during practice sessions. However, most of these existing machines are designed for spherical balls ignoring the distinguishing physical feature of a cricket ball: the raised equatorial seam, which makes it less of a sphere. The bowlers are known to often benefit from this seam in their pursuit to taking the batsmen's wicket by imparting swing, spin and bounce variations along-with other bowling variables. This lack of the seam consideration creates a void between human and mechanical bowling. In this work, we present design and development of an automatic bowling machine termed as ROBOWLER to make mechanical bowling more realistic. This machine ensures ball seam position as well as fulfills other constraints. Ball pitching and seam position accuracy results underscore the suitability of this design to enhance the capabilities of mechanical bowling.

The neglect of nonnative orthopterans as potential invaders:A call for awareness

Despite the potential ecological and economic impacts of invasive species,there is a dearth of data on the presence,impacts,and management implications of potentially invasive Orthoptera species.This lack of research and inconsistent data,including risk screenings and impact assessments,is especially evident in Europe.Consequently,assessing the status,distribution,and potential threats of nonnative Orthoptera in Europe remains challenging,impeding the development of effective management strategies.To address this gap,we call for increased efforts to collect and curate data on non-native and possibly invasive Orthoptera in Europe.Such efforts will improve our understanding of this order’s invasion dynamics,facilitate the identification of priority areas for conservation,and support the development of effective management policies and preventive measures.

Genotoxicity testing for radon exposure： Dolichopoda （Orthoptera, Rhaphidophoridae） as potential bio-indicator of confined environments

Radon represents the major source of natural radioactivity in confined environments. Despite the clear evidence of a direct association between residential exposure and human lung cancer provided by case-control studies, results relating indoor exposure and genotoxic/mutagenic effect induction are still contradictory. The present study attempts to estimate the genotoxic effects induced by exposure to radioactive radon in wild cricket populations sampled from caves where varying concentrations of radon are present. Cave crickets are also tested as possible bio-indicator organisms of genotoxic potential of contaminated residential and confined environments. Six caves in Central Italy are considered covering a broad spectrum of radon radioactivity concentration （221-26,000 Bq/m3）. Dolichopoda specimens were sampled from each cave; both haemocytes and brain cells taken from individuals were tested for responsiveness to DNA damage induced by radon through the Comet assay. Specimens from the least radioactive cave, housed in controlled conditions for 60 days before analysis, were used as control group. Statistically significant increase of DNA damage was found in all groups of individuals from each cave, for both cell types. Very low values of all Comet parameters were found in control group individuals, which gave indications of a good responsiveness of the organism to the variable environmental levels of radioactive contamination. Results indicate that cave crickets represent a reliable tool for the detection of genotoxic potential induced by radioactive contamination of confined environments and can be proposed as a possible bio-indicator system for air （-radioactive） pollution related to indoor exposure [Current Zoology 60 （2）： 299-307, 2014].

The terrestrial locomotion of a mole cricket with foreleg amputation

Mole cricket is a unique insect, it not only can dig and excavate under ground with its specialized forelimb, but also can achieve terrestrial locomotion. This study focused on the difference of kinematics between mole crickets and normal insects in terrestrial walking. In order to study the function of the specialized foreleg, the adjustments made to the foreleg amputation were discussed by analyzing the motion ability, gait, and body posture of the mole cricket with and without forelegs. The re- suits show that mole crickets walk in terrestrial locomotion by using a special tripod gait, with the clumsy foreleg not as func- tional as normal hexapods. Mole cricket can make corresponding adjustments for the situation of missing forelegs, and achieve required molion stability with remained four legs.

Hierarchical structure and biomineralization in cricket teeth

The cricket is a truculent insect with stiff and sharp teeth as a fighting weapon. The structure and possible biomineralization of cricket teeth are always interesting. Synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, and small angle X-ray scattering techniques were used to probe the element distribution, possible crystalline structures and size distribution of scatterers in cricket teeth. A scanning electron microscope was used to observe the nanoscaled structure. The results demonstrate that Zn is the main heavy element in cricket teeth. The surface of a cricket tooth has a crystalline compound like ZnFe2（AsO4）2（OH）2（H2O）4 . The interior of the tooth has a crystalline compound like ZnCl2 , which is from the biomineralization. The ZnCl2-like biomineral forms nanoscaled microfibrils and their axial direction points towards the top of the tooth cusp. The microfibrils aggregate randomly into intermediate filaments, forming a hierarchical structure. A sketch map of the cricket tooth cusp is proposed and a detailed discussion is given in this paper.

CRICKET COMBAT

Agaggle of men form a circle,sweat on their brows as they wave hundred yuan bills in the air in a darkly lit room in Beijing.Sure,gambling is illegal in China,but that won’t stop these blood-sport enthusiasts.The fight is on,and they wildly cheer on the two males in question.