Echo-intensity compensation in echolocating bats (Pipistrellus abramus) during flight measured by a telemetry microphone

An onboard microphone (Telemike) was developed to examine changes in the basic characteristics of echolocation sounds of small frequency-modulated echolocating bats, Pipistrellus abramus. Using a dual high-speed video camera system, spatiotemporal observations of echolocation characteristics were conducted on bats during a landing flight task in the laboratory. The Telemike allowed us to observe emitted pulses and returning echoes to which the flying bats listened during flight, and the acoustic parameters could be precisely measured without traditional problems such as the directional properties of the recording microphone and the emitted pulse, or traveling loss of the sound in the air. Pulse intensity in bats intending to land exhibited a marked decrease by 30 dB within 2 m of the target wall, and the reduction rate was approximately 6.5 dB per halving of distance. The intensity of echoes returning from the target wall indicated a nearly constant intensity (-42.6 +/- 5.5 dB weaker than the pulse emitted in search phase) within a target distance of 2 m. These findings provide direct evidence that bats adjust pulse intensity to compensate for changes in echo intensity to maintain a constant intensity of the echo returned from the approaching target at an optimal range.     

Vocalization control in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) during locomotion behavior

The vocalization behavior of Mongolian gerbils, a model animal of auditory physiology, was examined. A pair of gerbils was placed in a chamber, and their species-specific vocalizations and locomotive behaviors were recorded and analyzed. Two types of calls were predominantly produced: high-frequency upward frequency-modulated (HU-FM) calls and low-frequency multi-harmonic frequency-modulated (LM-FM) calls. Emission rates of HU-FM calls significantly decreased as the distance between the two gerbils increased, and playback of simulated HU-FM calls increased the emission rates. Acoustic analysis of HU-FM calls showed that the calls exhibited a stereotypic spectro-temporal structure including a fixed inter-onset interval (100-175 ms) and that individual differences in the frequency could convey the body size of the callers. The timing of HU-FM calls was highly synchronized with jump movements when an animal vocalized while jumping, suggesting the existence of tight locomotor-vocal coupling. Conversely, LM-FM calls were observed only when the gerbils tactilely contacted with each other while fighting over a food. These results suggest that Mongolian gerbils change the rates of call emissions and call types (e.g., LM-FM or HU-FM calls) in response to changes in visual and possibly tactile and auditory information. The functions of both calls are discussed in terms of their acoustic structures.     

Triviality of Hierarchical Ising Model¶in Four Dimensions

Existence of critical renormalization group trajectory for a hierarchical Ising model in 4 dimensions is shown. After 70 iterations of renormalization group transformations, the critical Ising model is mapped into a vicinity of the Gaussian fixed point. Convergence of the subsequent trajectory to the Gaussian fixed point is shown by power decay of the effective coupling constant. The analysis in the strong coupling regime is computer-aided and Newman's inequalities on truncated correlations are used to give mathematical rigor to the numerical bounds. In order to obtain a criterion for convergence to the Gaussian fixed point, characteristic functions and Newman's inequalities are systematically used. Received: 27 April 2000 / Accepted: 5 January 2001     

Molecular dynamics simulations of structural disordering and forming defects in a milling process for selenium

In our previous paper, structural changes of selenium powders ground by a planetary ball mill at various rotational speeds were investigated for the nanostructural modification of particles using mechanical grinding process. The experimental results indicated that the amorphisation of Se by grinding accompanies lattice strain, and the lattice strain arises from impact energy which is more than an energy related to intermolecular interaction. In this paper, molecular dynamics simulations of selenium have been carried out under compressing conditions of various pressure strengths for obtaining information of the lattice strain at atomic level. Then, dynamical behaviour of atomic configuration has been discussed in this process. The structural disordering and formation of the structural defects were estimated by deviations of bond length and angle and the number of created defects before and after compressing from simulated results. The disordering took place during compressing at various pressure strengths, and the disordered atoms return to their initial positions at lower pressure. Stable disordered state and defects after the compression can however remain by compression at more than a certain pressure strength mainly associated with binding energy of selenium.     

Nanoparticles in Emissions and Atmospheric Environment: Now and Future

Journal of Nanoparticle Research -     

Sharp photonic Crystal Defect Modes and Their Response to Ultrashort Optical Pulses

Single photonic crystal defects based on an air-bridge structure were fabricated. We obtained sharp defect modes with quality factors higher than 600 and observed their response to ultrashort optical pulses by utilizing two-photon absorption.     

Current-driven resonant excitation of magnetic vortices

A magnetic vortex core in a ferromagnetic circular nanodot has a resonance frequency originating from the confinement of the vortex core. By the micromagnetic simulation including the spin-transfer torque, we show that the vortex core can be resonantly excited by an ac (spin-polarized) current through the dot and that the resonance frequency can be tuned by the dot shape. The resistance measurement under the ac current successfully detects the resonance at the frequency consistent with the simulation.     

The three-dimensional structure of aspergilloglutamic peptidase from Aspergillus niger

Aspergilloglutamic peptidase from Aspergillus niger is a novel pepstatin-insensitive acid endopeptidase distinct from the well-studied aspartic peptidases, and thus is an interesting target for protein structure/function studies. In the present study, we have determined the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme by X-ray crystallography to a 1.4-Å resolution. The results revealed that the enzyme has a unique structure, composed of two seven-stranded anti-parallel β-sheets which form a β-sandwich structure and appear to have a partial two-fold symmetry, suggesting its possible evolution by gene duplication and that the glutamic acid-110 and glutamine-24 in the heavy chain form a catalytic dyad, consistent with our results obtained by site-directed mutagenesis.     

Entrainment of randomly coupled oscillator networks by a pacemaker

Entrainment by a pacemaker, representing an element with a higher frequency, is numerically investigated for several classes of random networks which consist of identical phase oscillators. We find that the entrainment frequency window of a network decreases exponentially with its depth, defined as the mean forward distance of the elements from the pacemaker. Effectively, only shallow networks can thus exhibit frequency locking to the pacemaker. The exponential dependence is also derived analytically as an approximation for large random asymmetric networks.     

Data extrapolation method for boundary element method-based near-field acoustical holography

A new data extrapolation method for boundary element method (BEM)-based near-field acoustical holography (NAH) is proposed to reduce an error of the reconstructed result obtained from the pressure measured on an aperture small compared with the structure. The finiteness of the measurement aperture is a serious impediment to actual large-scale implementation of NAH, because NAH requires the measurement of the pressure field over a complete surface of structure. To eliminate the requirement, the wave number-space data extrapolation method for fast Fourier transform (FFT)-based NAH has been proposed. In this paper, the extension of this data extrapolation method to BEM-based NAH is presented. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated by experiments. The experiment results confirm that the reconstruction error is sufficiently suppressed by the proposed method.