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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
71

Overcoming Voltage Issues Associated with Integration of Photovoltaic Resources in the Electric Grid

Rahimi, Kaveh 15 March 2018 (has links)
Power generation from solar energy has significantly increased, and the growth is projected to continue in the foreseeable future. The main challenge of dealing with solar energy is its intermittent nature. The received irradiation energy of the sun on the earth's surface can fluctuate in a matter of seconds and cause voltage issues to power systems. Considering the high growth rate of solar photovoltaic (PV) resources, it is essential to be prepared to encounter and manage their high penetration levels. Currently, simplified approaches are used to model the impacts of cloud shadows on power systems. Using outdated standards also limits the penetration levels more than required. Approximately 40% of the new PV installations are residential, or installed at a low voltage level. Currently, all components between utility distribution transformers and customers/loads are either ignored or modeled with oversimplification. Furthermore, large PV systems require a considerable amount of land. However, point sensor models are currently used to simulate those systems. With a point model, the irradiance values measured at a point sensor are used to represent the output of a large PV system. However, in reality, clouds cover photovoltaic resources gradually and if the solar arrays are widespread over a large geospatial area, it takes some time for clouds to pass over the solar arrays. Finally, before 2014, participation of small-scale renewable resources was not allowed in controlling voltage. However, they can contribute significantly in voltage regulation. The main objective of this dissertation is to address the abovementioned issues in order to increase the penetration levels as well as precisely identify and locate voltage problems. A time-series analysis approach is used in modeling cloud motion. Using the time-series approach, changes of the received irradiation energy of the sun due to cloud shadows are simulated realistically with a Cloud Motion Simulator. Moreover, the use of the time-series approach allows implementation of new grid codes and standards, which is not possible using the old step change methods of simulating cloud impacts. Furthermore, all electrical components between utility transformers and customers are modeled to eliminate the inaccuracy due to using oversimplified models. Distributed PV models are also developed and used to represent large photovoltaic systems. In addition, the effectiveness of more distributed voltage control schemes compared to the traditional voltage control configurations is investigated. Inverters connect renewable energy resources to the power grid and they may use different control strategies to control voltage. Different control strategies are also compared with the current practice to investigate voltage control performance under irradiation variations. This dissertation presents a comprehensive approach to study impacts of solar PV resources. Moreover, simulation results show that by using time-series analysis and new grid codes, as well as employing distributed PV models, penetration of solar PV resources can increase significantly with no unacceptable voltage effects. It is also demonstrated that detailed secondary models are required to accurately identify locations with voltage problems. / PHD
72

Étude électrophysiologique de l’impact de la couleur dans le déploiement attentionnel

Jetté Pomerleau, Vincent 01 1900 (has links)
L’influence de la couleur dans les mécanismes perceptuels et attentionnels a été étudiée. Quatre couleurs (le rouge, le vert, le bleu et le jaune) ont été calibrées individuellement à travers la technique heterochromatic flicker photometry. Suivant cela, les participants ont déployé leur attention à une cible (un cercle de couleur avec une ligne orientée). Les données électrophysiologiques ont été enregistrées pendant que les sujets performaient la tâche de recherche visuelle, et les analyses ont été basées sur les potentiels évoqués (PÉs). Trois composantes des PÉs ont été examinées : la posterior contralateral positivity (Ppc); la N2pc, reflétant le déploiement de l’attention visuo-spatiale et la temporal and contralateral positivity (Ptc). Des conditions dans lesquelles la cible était bleu ou rouge, lorsque comparées à des conditions avec une cible jaune ou verte suscitaient une N2pc plus précoce. Une amplitude plus élevée est aussi observée pour les cibles rouges pour les composantes Ppc et Ptc, reflétant une sélectivité pré-attentionelle. Ces résultats suggèrent de la prudence dans l’interprétation de données comparant des cibles de différentes couleurs dans des tâches de PÉs, et ce même lorsque les couleurs sont équiluminantes. / We investigated how target color affected behavioral and electrophysiological results in a visual search task. Perceptual and attentional mechanisms were tracked using the N2pc component of the event-related potential and other lateralized components. Four colors (red, green, blue, or yellow) were calibrated for each participant for luminance through heterochromatic flicker photometry and equated to the luminance of grey distractors. Each visual display contained 10 circles, 1 colored and 9 grey, each of which contained an oriented line segment. The task required deploying attention to the colored circle, which was either in the left or right visual hemifield. Three lateralized ERP components relative to the side of the lateral colored circle were examined: a posterior contralateral positivity (Ppc) prior to N2pc, the N2pc, reflecting the deployment of visual spatial attention, and a temporal and contralateral positivity (Ptc) following N2pc. Red or blue stimuli, as compared to green or yellow, had an earlier N2pc. Both the Ppc and Ptc had higher amplitudes to red stimuli, suggesting particular selectivity for red. The results suggest that attention may be deployed to red and blue more quickly than to other colors and suggests special caution when designing ERP experiments involving stimuli in different colors, even when all colors are equiluminant.
73

Resolução temporal de videogames de ação e seus efeitos em tarefas visuais / Effects of action video games temporal resolution on visual tasks

Tiraboschi, Gabriel Arantes 19 April 2017 (has links)
Existem evidências que jogar videogames de ação (AVG) aperfeiçoa habilidades perceptuais, atentivas e cognitivas, como por exemplo, recuperação mais rápida da atenção visual e aprimoramento das dinâmicas temporais da percepção visual. Estudos correlacionais sugerem que estes aprimoramentos temporais se aplicam também ao processamento visual de baixa ordem, contudo evidências mais contundentes são necessárias. Ademais, no campo da multimídia computacional estudos apontam que a resolução temporal na qual o videogame é apresentado na tela, correspondente a taxa de quadros por segundo (QPS), afeta o desempenho e o entretenimento de jogadores. Entretanto ainda não se sabe como aspectos técnicos dos AVG, como a taxa de QPS, influenciam nos aperfeiçoamentos cognitivos citados anteriormente. Para esclarecer tais lacunas, delineou-se um estudo para verificar se AVG jogados em diferentes QPS afetam a recuperação temporal da atenção, medidos pela tarefa de Supressão Atencional (SA), e se há alterações nos limiares da resolução temporal visual, medidas através da frequência crítica de fusão e oscilação da visão (CFF). Trinta e dois (16M, 16F) participantes não jogadores de videogame voluntariaram-se para um experimento longitudinal. Inicialmente os voluntários foram separados em quatro grupos (4M, 4F) e todos eles no primeiro dia foram submetidos a uma tarefa de mensuração de CFF na região visual central e uma tarefa de SA. No dia seguinte e depois nos sete dias conseguintes dois grupos, intitulados experimentais, realizaram um treinamento com videogames de ação, sendo que cada um dos grupos treinou em diferentes resoluções temporais, um a 15 QPS e outro a 120 QPS. Simultaneamente um terceiro grupo, treinou com um videogame controle sem elementos de ação. E o quarto grupo, controle, não teve treinamento. O total de tempo de treinamento foi de 10 horas, distribuído em 8 dias, exceto para o grupo sem treino. No dia posterior ao último dia de treinamento todos os participantes foram submetidos novamente a tarefas de SA e CFF. De modo geral o CFF aumentou para todos os participantes entre pré e pós-teste, particularmente para o grupo sem treino, não houve efeito de grupo. Desempenho no SA melhorou somente no para lag2 (212ms) para participantes que treinaram AVG na taxa de QPS mais baixa. Estes resultados sugerem que treinamento com AVG não aumenta o limiar do CFF na região visual central, se não o oposto, e que o aprimoramento temporal da atenção beneficia-se com um treinamento com AVG em baixa resolução temporal, mas não de alta taxa de QPS, ao menos nas 10 horas iniciais de treino / Action video game play enhances perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills, such as leading to faster recovery of visual attention over time and improvement of temporal dynamics of visual perception. Correlational data suggest that these temporal enhancements extend to low-level vision processes, but stronger evidence is needed. Also, in the multimedia computing field it was pointed out that video game screen frame rate affects players performance and enjoyment, but it is unclear how such technical aspects of the games play a role in cognitive augmentations. To shed more light on these issues, we tested whether action video game play and the frame rate at which they are played affects flicker detection in the central visual field and performance in attentional blink task. Thirty two (16 M, 16F) non-video game players volunteered to a longitudinal experiment. They were randomly split into four groups (4M, 4F). All of the groups performed a critical flicker-fusion frequency task (by method of limits) and attentional blink task at the first day of the experiment. Two experimental groups underwent action video-game training with different screen frame-rate caps each (15 and 120 frames per second, respectively). And one control group trained with a control game and a second control group had no training. The total amount of time in video-game training was 10 hours (75 min per day for consecutive 8 days), except for the no-training group. On the 10th day, all participants performed the flicker-detection and attentional blink tasks (post-test). Generally, critical flicker-fusion thresholds increased at the post-test for all groups, particularly for the non-training group, there were no group effect. Only marginal increased were observed in lag 2 for participant trained in low-frame-rate action video games. Our data suggest that playing video games do not increase flicker sensitivity threshold, it may actually prevent increase. And lower frame rate training produce transfer effects to Attentional Blink task, but not the higher frame rate training, at least in the first 10 hours
74

A physics-based statistical random telegraph noise model / Um modelo estatistico e fisicamente baseado para o minimo RTN

Silva, Maurício Banaszeski da January 2016 (has links)
O Ruído de Baixa Frequência (LFN), tais como o ruído flicker e o Random Telegraph Noise (RTN), são limitadores de performance em muitos circuitos analógicos e digitais. Para transistores diminutos, a densidade espectral de potência do ruído pode variar muitas ordens de grandeza, impondo uma séria limitação na performance do circuito e também em sua confiabilidade. Nesta tese, nós propomos um novo modelo de RTN estatístico para descrever o ruído de baixa frequência em MOSFETs. Utilizando o modelo proposto, pode-se explicar e calcular o valor esperado e a variabilidade do ruído em função das polarizações, geometrias e dos parâmetros físicos do transistor. O modelo é validado através de inúmeros resultados experimentais para dispositivos com canais tipo n e p, e para diferentes tecnologias CMOS. É demonstrado que a estatística do ruído LFN dos dispositivos de canal tipo n e p podem ser descritos através do mesmo mecanismo. Através dos nossos resultados e do nosso modelo, nós mostramos que a densidade de armadilhas dos transistores de canal tipo p é fortemente dependente do nível de Fermi, enquanto para o transistor de tipo n a densidade de armadilhas pode ser considerada constante na energia. Também é mostrado e explicado, através do nosso modelo, o impacto do implante de halo nas estatísticas do ruído. Utilizando o modelo demonstra-se porque a variabilidade, denotado por σ[log(SId)], do RTN/LFN não segue uma dependência 1/√área; e fica demonstrado que o ruído, e sua variabilidade, encontrado em nossas medidas pode ser modelado utilizando parâmetros físicos. Além disso, o modelo proposto pode ser utilizado para calcular o percentil do ruído, o qual pode ser utilizado para prever ou alcançar certo rendimento do circuito. / Low Frequency Noise (LFN) and Random Telegraph Noise (RTN) are performance limiters in many analog and digital circuits. For small area devices, the noise power spectral density can easily vary by many orders of magnitude, imposing serious threat on circuit performance and possibly reliability. In this thesis, we propose a new RTN model to describe the statistics of the low frequency noise in MOSFETs. Using the proposed model, we can explain and calculate the Expected value and Variability of the noise as function of devices’ biases, geometry and physical parameters. The model is validated through numerous experimental results for n-channel and p-channel devices from different CMOS technology nodes. We show that the LFN statistics of n-channel and p-channel MOSFETs can be described by the same mechanism. From our results and model, we show that the trap density of the p-channel device is a strongly varying function of the Fermi level, whereas for the n-channel the trap density can be considered constant. We also show and explain, using the proposed model, the impact of the halo-implanted regions on the statistics of the noise. Using this model, we clarify why the variability, denoted by σ[log(SId)], of RTN/LFN doesn't follow a 1/√area dependence; and we demonstrate that the noise, and its variability, found in our measurements can be modeled using reasonable physical quantities. Moreover, the proposed model can be used to calculate the percentile quantity of the noise, which can be used to predict or to achieve certain circuit yield.
75

Resolução temporal de videogames de ação e seus efeitos em tarefas visuais / Effects of action video games temporal resolution on visual tasks

Gabriel Arantes Tiraboschi 19 April 2017 (has links)
Existem evidências que jogar videogames de ação (AVG) aperfeiçoa habilidades perceptuais, atentivas e cognitivas, como por exemplo, recuperação mais rápida da atenção visual e aprimoramento das dinâmicas temporais da percepção visual. Estudos correlacionais sugerem que estes aprimoramentos temporais se aplicam também ao processamento visual de baixa ordem, contudo evidências mais contundentes são necessárias. Ademais, no campo da multimídia computacional estudos apontam que a resolução temporal na qual o videogame é apresentado na tela, correspondente a taxa de quadros por segundo (QPS), afeta o desempenho e o entretenimento de jogadores. Entretanto ainda não se sabe como aspectos técnicos dos AVG, como a taxa de QPS, influenciam nos aperfeiçoamentos cognitivos citados anteriormente. Para esclarecer tais lacunas, delineou-se um estudo para verificar se AVG jogados em diferentes QPS afetam a recuperação temporal da atenção, medidos pela tarefa de Supressão Atencional (SA), e se há alterações nos limiares da resolução temporal visual, medidas através da frequência crítica de fusão e oscilação da visão (CFF). Trinta e dois (16M, 16F) participantes não jogadores de videogame voluntariaram-se para um experimento longitudinal. Inicialmente os voluntários foram separados em quatro grupos (4M, 4F) e todos eles no primeiro dia foram submetidos a uma tarefa de mensuração de CFF na região visual central e uma tarefa de SA. No dia seguinte e depois nos sete dias conseguintes dois grupos, intitulados experimentais, realizaram um treinamento com videogames de ação, sendo que cada um dos grupos treinou em diferentes resoluções temporais, um a 15 QPS e outro a 120 QPS. Simultaneamente um terceiro grupo, treinou com um videogame controle sem elementos de ação. E o quarto grupo, controle, não teve treinamento. O total de tempo de treinamento foi de 10 horas, distribuído em 8 dias, exceto para o grupo sem treino. No dia posterior ao último dia de treinamento todos os participantes foram submetidos novamente a tarefas de SA e CFF. De modo geral o CFF aumentou para todos os participantes entre pré e pós-teste, particularmente para o grupo sem treino, não houve efeito de grupo. Desempenho no SA melhorou somente no para lag2 (212ms) para participantes que treinaram AVG na taxa de QPS mais baixa. Estes resultados sugerem que treinamento com AVG não aumenta o limiar do CFF na região visual central, se não o oposto, e que o aprimoramento temporal da atenção beneficia-se com um treinamento com AVG em baixa resolução temporal, mas não de alta taxa de QPS, ao menos nas 10 horas iniciais de treino / Action video game play enhances perceptual, attentional, and cognitive skills, such as leading to faster recovery of visual attention over time and improvement of temporal dynamics of visual perception. Correlational data suggest that these temporal enhancements extend to low-level vision processes, but stronger evidence is needed. Also, in the multimedia computing field it was pointed out that video game screen frame rate affects players performance and enjoyment, but it is unclear how such technical aspects of the games play a role in cognitive augmentations. To shed more light on these issues, we tested whether action video game play and the frame rate at which they are played affects flicker detection in the central visual field and performance in attentional blink task. Thirty two (16 M, 16F) non-video game players volunteered to a longitudinal experiment. They were randomly split into four groups (4M, 4F). All of the groups performed a critical flicker-fusion frequency task (by method of limits) and attentional blink task at the first day of the experiment. Two experimental groups underwent action video-game training with different screen frame-rate caps each (15 and 120 frames per second, respectively). And one control group trained with a control game and a second control group had no training. The total amount of time in video-game training was 10 hours (75 min per day for consecutive 8 days), except for the no-training group. On the 10th day, all participants performed the flicker-detection and attentional blink tasks (post-test). Generally, critical flicker-fusion thresholds increased at the post-test for all groups, particularly for the non-training group, there were no group effect. Only marginal increased were observed in lag 2 for participant trained in low-frame-rate action video games. Our data suggest that playing video games do not increase flicker sensitivity threshold, it may actually prevent increase. And lower frame rate training produce transfer effects to Attentional Blink task, but not the higher frame rate training, at least in the first 10 hours
76

Conversor TrifÃsico com Capacitor Chaveado para LEDs de PotÃncia / Three-Phase Swicthed Capacitor Converter for Power LEDs

Ronaldo Portela Coutinho 08 August 2016 (has links)
CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Este trabalho apresenta o estudo, o projeto e a implementaÃÃo de um driver trifÃsico para diodos emissores de luz (LEDs) baseado num conversor com capacitor chaveado (SC â Switched Capacitor), tambÃm conhecido como charge-pump. Uma luminÃria LED com a tecnologia Chip-on-Board (COB), que proporciona uma elevada densidade de potÃncia, à utilizada como carga. Assim como os LEDs, os drivers destes dispositivos devem apresentar uma longa vida Ãtil e um elevado rendimento. A vida Ãtil dos drivers para LEDs à geralmente limitada pelo uso de capacitores eletrolÃticos convencionais. Estes dispositivos apresentam uma vida Ãtil incompatÃvel com a dos LEDs e, por isso, nÃo devem ser utilizados nos seus drivers. AlÃm disso, os drivers para LEDs devem proporcionar uma baixa ondulaÃÃo de corrente nos LEDs, garantindo um baixo flicker percentual e evitando danos à saÃde humana. Diante destes problemas, o conversor trifÃsico SC proposto nÃo utiliza capacitores eletrolÃticos, o que eleva a expectativa de vida Ãtil do driver. O conversor emite um baixo flicker percentual e à capaz de estabilizar a corrente de saÃda sem a necessidade de um controle de malha fechada, o que pode reduzir os custos de projeto. A topologia permite a dimerizaÃÃo dos LEDs atravÃs da variaÃÃo da frequÃncia de comutaÃÃo. Resultados experimentais de um protÃtipo de 216 W sÃo analisados e discutidos para validaÃÃo da proposta. Em condiÃÃes nominais, o conversor apresentou um rendimento global de 91,5%, um fator de potÃncia acima de 0,99 e uma distorÃÃo harmÃnica menor que 5% nas trÃs fases, obedecendo as Classes A e C da norma IEC 61000-3-2:2014. AlÃm disso, foi obtida uma ondulaÃÃo de corrente de alta frequÃncia igual a 16,97% e um flicker percentual de 4,97%, estando de acordo com as recomendaÃÃes da IEEE. A dimerizaÃÃo dos LEDs permitiu a reduÃÃo da potÃncia de saÃda em atà 50%, com rendimento prÃximo a 91%, fator de potÃncia acima de 0,97, distorÃÃo harmÃnica total inferior a 6% para as trÃs fases e flicker percentual menor que 7% para toda a faixa de potÃncia. / This paper presents the study, design and implementation of a three-phase light-emitting diode (LED) driver based on a switched capacitor (SC) converter, also known as charge-pump. A LED lamp with Chip-On-Board (COB) technology, which provides a high power density, is used as load. As the LEDs, drivers of these devices must have a high efficiency and a long useful lifetime, which is usually limited by the use of conventional electrolytic capacitors. These devices have an incompatible lifetime with LEDs and, therefore, they should not be used in their drivers. In addition, the LED drivers should provide a low ripple current in LEDs, which can provide the emission of a low percent flicker. Studies demonstrate that excessive percent flicker may cause damage to human health. Given these problems, the proposed switched capacitor LED driver does not use electrolytic capacitors, which increases the expectative of useful lifetime of the driver. It emits a low percent flicker, which reduces the risks to human health. It can stabilize the output current without the need of a closed-loop control, which may reduce design costs. It allows the LEDs dimming by varying the switching frequency. An experimental prototype rated at 216 W has been developed in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, while results are properly presented and discussed. In nominal conditions, the drive presented an overall efficiency of 91.5%, a power factor greater than 0.99 and a current total harmonic distortion lower than 5% in three phases. The harmonic currents are in accordance with the limits imposed by IEC Standard 61000-3-2:2014 to class A and C equipment. Furthermore, a high frequency current ripple equal to 16.97% and a percent flicker of 4.97% was obtained, which is in accordance with IEEE recommendations. The LEDs dimming allowed the reduction of the output power up to 50%, while the efficiency remained close to 91% and the power factor remained above 0.97. In addition, the total harmonic distortion was below 6% and the percent flicker was lower than 7% for the entire dimming range.
77

Determination Of Stochastic Model Parameters Of Inertial Sensors

Unver, Alper 01 January 2013 (has links) (PDF)
ABSTRACT DETERMINATION OF STOCHASTIC MODEL PARAMETERS OF INERTIAL SENSORS &Uuml / nver, Alper PhD, Department of Electric Electronic Engineering Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M&uuml / beccel Demirekler January 2013, 82 pages Gyro and accelerometer systematic errors due to biases, scale factors, and misalignments can be compensated via an on-board Kalman filtering approach in a Navigation System. On the other hand, sensor random noise sources such as Quantization Noise (QN), Angular Random Walk (ARW), Flicker Noise (FN), and Rate Random Walk (RRW) are not easily estimated by an on-board filter, due to their random characteristics. In this thesis a new method based on the variance of difference sequences is proposed to compute the powers of the above mentioned noise sources. The method is capable of online or offline estimation of stochastic model parameters of the inertial sensors. Our aim in this study is the estimation of ARW, FN and RRW parameters besides the quantization and the Gauss-Markov noise parameters of the inertial sensors. The proposed method is tested both on the simulated and the real sensor data and the results are compared with the Allan variance method. Comparison shows very satisfactory results for the performance of the method. Computational load of the new method is less than the computational load of the Allan variance on the order of tens. One of the usages of this method is the individual noise characterization. A noise, whose power spectral density has a constant slope, can be identified accurately by the proposed method. In addition to this, the parameters of the GM noise can also be determined. Another idea developed here is to approximate the overall error source as a combination of ARW and some number of GM sources only. The reasons of selecting such a structure is the feasibility of using these models in a Kalman filter framework for error propagation as well as their generality of modeling other noise sources.
78

Light Flicker Evaluation Of Electric Arc Furnaces Based On Novel Signal Processing Algorithms

Kose, Neslihan 01 September 2009 (has links) (PDF)
In this research work, two new flickermeters are proposed to estimate the light flicker caused by electric arc furnaces (EAFs) where the system frequency deviates significantly. In these methods, analytical expressions of the instantaneous light flicker sensation are obtained beginning from a voltage waveform and these expressions are used to obtain a flicker estimation method based on the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) flickermeter. First method is a spectral decomposition based approach using DFT to estimate the light flicker. The leakage effect of the DFT algorithm due to fundamental frequency variation is reduced by employing spectral amplitude correction procedure around the fundamental frequency. Second method is a Kalman filter based approach, in which the frequency domain components of the voltage waveform are obtained by Kalman filtering. Then these components are used to obtain the light flicker. Since the frequency decomposition is obtained by Kalman filtering, no leakage effect of the DFT is involved in case of frequency deviations which is an important advantage. Both methods are tested on both simulated data and field data obtained from three different EAF plants where the flicker level and frequency variation is considerably high. The comparison with the digital realization of the IEC flickermeter shows that the methods are successful in estimating light flicker with low computational complexity. The methods are especially useful for conditions such as disturbances and subsequent system transients where the system frequency deviates significantly, since the methods avoid the need for online sampling rate adjustment to prevent the DFT leakage effect.
79

Parental effort in the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) and the trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring

2014 September 1900 (has links)
The two main goals of my thesis were to further our understanding of how parental effort is related to life-history trade-offs and to see how parental investment is reflected in various potential measures of nestling quality. I looked at how fitness is maximized by examining (1) the trade-off between current and future reproduction, and (2) the trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring. To see how parents responded to energetic demands and whether each sex reacted in a similar way, I experimentally manipulated brood sizes and quantified provisioning rates. Both male and female parents with enlarged broods increased their feeding rates, but provisioning on a per nestling basis declined, so that parents fledged lighter nestlings with shorter wings. Although the incidence of mortality did not differ between control and enlarged broods, nestlings from enlarged broods were lighter than those from control broods with the same brood size, suggesting that clutch size may be individually optimized. I also looked at how nestlings responded to different levels of nutritional stress in the manipulated broods by quantifying size and body condition, plumage colouration, and the physiological measures of T-cell mediated immune responses, and corticosterone levels in nestling feathers as a long-term integrated measure of stress physiology. The size of melanin ornaments on feathers and the saturation and brightness of carotenoid colouration was associated with nestling mass in such a way that suggested that plumage characteristics reflect nestling quality. The immune function of nestlings was negatively related to brood size and nestlings in better body condition could mount greater immune responses to foreign antigens suggesting that immune responses are energetically costly. Corticosterone levels in the feathers were not related to nestling body condition and were unaffected by the experimental brood manipulation. The ii mass of male nestlings, which are the larger sex, was more compromised by brood size than female mass was. I also found sex-specific relationships between plumage characteristics and measures of physiological performance. These findings help to explain optimal clutch size and the classic trade-off between quality and quantity of offspring. They also offer new insights into the reliability of putative measures of quality in nestlings and relationships between physiological and morphological traits.
80

Étude électrophysiologique de l’impact de la couleur dans le déploiement attentionnel

Jetté Pomerleau, Vincent 01 1900 (has links)
L’influence de la couleur dans les mécanismes perceptuels et attentionnels a été étudiée. Quatre couleurs (le rouge, le vert, le bleu et le jaune) ont été calibrées individuellement à travers la technique heterochromatic flicker photometry. Suivant cela, les participants ont déployé leur attention à une cible (un cercle de couleur avec une ligne orientée). Les données électrophysiologiques ont été enregistrées pendant que les sujets performaient la tâche de recherche visuelle, et les analyses ont été basées sur les potentiels évoqués (PÉs). Trois composantes des PÉs ont été examinées : la posterior contralateral positivity (Ppc); la N2pc, reflétant le déploiement de l’attention visuo-spatiale et la temporal and contralateral positivity (Ptc). Des conditions dans lesquelles la cible était bleu ou rouge, lorsque comparées à des conditions avec une cible jaune ou verte suscitaient une N2pc plus précoce. Une amplitude plus élevée est aussi observée pour les cibles rouges pour les composantes Ppc et Ptc, reflétant une sélectivité pré-attentionelle. Ces résultats suggèrent de la prudence dans l’interprétation de données comparant des cibles de différentes couleurs dans des tâches de PÉs, et ce même lorsque les couleurs sont équiluminantes. / We investigated how target color affected behavioral and electrophysiological results in a visual search task. Perceptual and attentional mechanisms were tracked using the N2pc component of the event-related potential and other lateralized components. Four colors (red, green, blue, or yellow) were calibrated for each participant for luminance through heterochromatic flicker photometry and equated to the luminance of grey distractors. Each visual display contained 10 circles, 1 colored and 9 grey, each of which contained an oriented line segment. The task required deploying attention to the colored circle, which was either in the left or right visual hemifield. Three lateralized ERP components relative to the side of the lateral colored circle were examined: a posterior contralateral positivity (Ppc) prior to N2pc, the N2pc, reflecting the deployment of visual spatial attention, and a temporal and contralateral positivity (Ptc) following N2pc. Red or blue stimuli, as compared to green or yellow, had an earlier N2pc. Both the Ppc and Ptc had higher amplitudes to red stimuli, suggesting particular selectivity for red. The results suggest that attention may be deployed to red and blue more quickly than to other colors and suggests special caution when designing ERP experiments involving stimuli in different colors, even when all colors are equiluminant.

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