Leading-following behavior as a way of transferring information about the location of resources is wide-spread in many animal societies. It represents active information transfer that allows a given social species to reach collective decisions in the presence of limited information. Although leading-following behavior has received much scientific interest in the form of field studies, there is a need for systematic methods to quantify and study the individual contributions in this information transfer, which would eventually lead us to hypotheses about the individual mechanisms underlying this behaviour. In this paper we propose a general methodology that allows us to (a) infer individual leading-following behaviour from discrete observational data and (b) quantify individual influence based on methods from social network analysis. To demonstrate our methodology, we analyze longitudinal data of the roosting behavior of two different colonies of Bechstein's bats in different years. Regarding (a) we show how thal data.Human machine interfaces that can track head motion will result in advances in physical rehabilitation, improved augmented reality/virtual reality systems, and aid in the study of human behavior. This paper presents a head position monitoring and classification system using thin flexible strain sensing threads placed on the neck of an individual. A wireless circuit module consisting of impedance readout circuitry and a Bluetooth module records and transmits strain information to a computer. A data processing algorithm for motion recognition provides near real-time quantification of head position. Incoming data is filtered, normalized and divided into data segments. A set of features is extracted from each data segment and employed as input to nine classifiers including Support Vector Machine, Naive Bayes and KNN for position prediction. A testing accuracy of around 92% was achieved for a set of nine head orientations. Results indicate that this human machine interface platform is accurate, flexible, easy to use, and cost effective.DNA synthesis in vitro has enabled the rapid production of reference standards. These are used as controls, and allow measurement and improvement of the accuracy and quality of diagnostic tests. Current reference standards typically represent target genetic material, and act only as positive controls to assess test sensitivity. However, negative controls are also required to evaluate test specificity. Using a pair of chimeric A/B RNA standards, this allowed incorporation of positive and negative controls into diagnostic testing for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The chimeric standards constituted target regions for RT-PCR primer/probe sets that are joined in tandem across two separate synthetic molecules. Accordingly, a target region that is present in standard A provides a positive control, whilst being absent in standard B, thereby providing a negative control. This design enables cross-validation of positive and negative controls between the paired standards in the same reaction, with identical conditions. This enables control and test failures to be distinguished, increasing confidence in the accuracy of results. The chimeric A/B standards were assessed using the US Centres for Disease Control real-time RT-PCR protocol, and showed results congruent with other commercial controls in detecting SARS-CoV-2 in patient samples. This chimeric reference standard design approach offers extensive flexibility, allowing representation of diverse genetic features and distantly related sequences, even from different organisms.Bioavailability of α-tocopherol varies with source, dose and duration of supplementation. The effect of source and dose of α-tocopherol on response of α-tocopherol stereoisomers in plasma and tissues of mink kits during the weaning period was studied. Twelve mink kits were euthanised in CO2 at the beginning of the experiment, and 156 mink kits (12 replicates per treatment group) were randomly assigned to thirteen treatment groups no added α-tocopherol in the feed (0 dose) or four different doses (50, 75, 100 and 150 mg/kg of diet) of RRR-α-tocopherol (ALC), RRR-α-tocopheryl acetate (ACT) or all-rac-α-tocopheryl acetate (SYN). Six mink kits per treatment group were euthanised 3 weeks after initiation of the experiment, and the remaining six were euthanised 6 weeks after initiation of the experiment. The RRR-α-tocopherol content in plasma, liver, heart and lungs was affected by interaction between source and dose (P  less then  0.01 for all). The highest RRR-α-tocopherol content in plasma (13.6 µg/ml; LS-means for source across dose and week), liver (13.6 µg/mg), heart (7.6 µg/mg) and lungs (9.8 µg/mg) was observed in mink kits fed ALC. The RRR-α-tocopherol content in plasma and tissues depended on source and dose interaction and increased linearly with supplementation. In conclusion, the interaction between source and dose reveals a limitation in hydrolysis of ester bond in α-tocopheryl acetate in mink kits around weaning as the likely causative explanation for the higher response of ALC at the highest doses. Thus, considerable attention has to be paid to the source of α-tocopherol during weaning of mink kits fed a high dose of α-tocopherol.The purpose of this study was to investigate how the ball position along the mediolateral (M-L) direction of a golfer causes a chain effect in the ground reaction force, body segment and joint angles, and whole-body centre of mass during the golf swing. Twenty professional golfers were asked to complete five straight shots for each 5 different ball positions along M-L 4.27 cm (ball diameter), 2.14 cm (ball radius), 0 cm (reference position at preferred ball position), - 2.14 cm, and - 4.27 cm, while their ground reaction force and body segment motions were captured.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/mptp-hydrochloride.html  The dependant variables were calculated at 14 swing events from address to impact, and the differences between the ball positions were evaluated using Statistical Parametric Mapping. The left-sided ball positions at address showed a greater weight distribution on the left foot with a more open shoulder angle compared to the reference ball position, whereas the trend was reversed for the right-sided ball positions. These trends disappeared during the backswing and reappeared during the downswing.