Fishes are the most speciose group of living vertebrates, making up more than half of extant vertebrate diversity. They have evolved a wide array of swimming modes and body forms, including the batoid elasmobranchs, the dorsoventrally flattened skates and rays, which swim via oscillations or undulations of a broad pectoral fin disc. In this work I offer insights into locomotion by an undulatory batoid, freshwater stingray Potamotrygon orbignyi (Castelnau, 1855), combining studies of live animals, physical models, and preserved specimens. In Chapter 1, I quantify the three-dimensional kinematics of the P. orbignyi pectoral fin during undulatory locomotion, analyzing high-speed video to reconstruct three-dimensional pectoral fin motions. A relatively small portion (~25%) of the pectoral fin undulates with significant amplitude during swimming. To swim faster, stingrays increase the frequency, not the amplitude of propulsive motions, similar to the majority of studied fish species. Intermittently during swimming, a sharp, concave-down lateral curvature occurred at the fin margin; as the fin was cupped against the pressure of fluid flow this curvature is likely to be actively controlled. Chapter 2 employs a simple physical model of an undulating fin to examine the ground effects that stingrays may experience when swimming near a substrate. Previous research considering static air- and hydrofoils indicated that near-substrate locomotion offers a benefit to propulsion. Depending on small variations in swimming kinematics, undulating fins can swim faster near a solid boundary, but can also experience significant increases (~25%) in cost-of-transport. In Chapter 3, I determine how pectoral and pelvic fin locomotion are combined in P. orbignyi during augmented punting, a hybrid of pectoral and pelvic fin locomotion sometimes employed as stingrays move across a substrate. The timing of pectoral and pelvic fin motions is linked, indicating coordination of thrust production. Chapter 4 discusses pectoral fin structure and morphological variations within the fin, correlating morphology with the swimming kinematics observed in Chapter 1. Passive and active mechanisms may stiffen the anterior fin to create the stable leading edge seen during swimming; stingrays have converged on several structural features (fin ray segmentation and branching) shared by actinopterygian fishes.

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The Global Positioning System has all heights referred to the ellipsoid. However, for engineering applications it is necessary to have heights related to the earth gravitational field, which have physical meaning. In order to determine the orthometric height from the geoidal height, which is given at the GPS, it is necessary to know the geoidal undulation. The objective of this paper is to compare an empiric model of local geoidal undulation with a native model present in handheld GPS model GARMIN 12XL and the software call MAPGEO2004 IBGE. A test poligonal had been seted up in the campus of Universidade Regional Integrada do Alto Uruguai e das Missões (URI), in Santiago, RS. The poligonal was leveled and all the poligonal vertices had their orthometric heights determinated. The model for geoidal undulation present in the GARMIN receivers was accessed by a software developed by Geomatics Laboratory at UFSM. Using this program, all geoidal undulations were recorded for each surveyed point. Geoidal undulation with MAPGEO2004 have been obtained from the points geographic coordinates as inputs to the program. Empiric models were developed for the local geoidal undulation, which were compared to the GARMIN 12XL and MAGEO2004 models. The results analyses were conducted with a linear regression between all the three models and the traditional leveling. The results indicate a high correlation has been observed between the empirical model for geoidal undulation and the MAPGEO2004 program. However, there has been no adjust between orthometrics heights of the empirical model and those determined by the handheld receiver / O sistema GPS fornece altitudes referenciadas ao elipsóide. No entanto, para aplicações em engenharia, necessita-se de altitudes relacionadas com o campo gravitacional terrestre, que possuem ligação com a realidade física. Desse modo, para determinar as altitudes ortométricas a partir das altitudes geométricas, determinadas com o GPS, é preciso, conhecer a ondulação geoidal. O objetivo deste trabalho é comparar o desempenho de um modelo empírico de ondulação geoidal local com o modelo nativo de receptores de navegação modelo Garmin 12XL e o programa MAPGEO2004 - IBGE. Para tanto, foi instalada uma poligonal teste dentro do campus da Universidade Regional Integrada do Alto Uruguai e das Missões (URI), em Santiago, RS. Na mesma, foi executado um nivelamento de precisão para a determinação das altitudes ortométricas dos vértices. O modelo de ondulação geoidal existente nos receptores GPS modelo GARMIN 12XL, foi acessado por meio de um programa desenvolvido no Laboratório de Geomática da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Por meio deste programa, foram gravadas as ondulações geoidais dadas pelo equipamento para cada ponto rastreado. No programa MAPGEO2004 as ondulações geoidais foram obtidas a partir da entrada das coordenadas curvilíneas latitude e longitude dos pontos de interesse. Foram desenvolvidos modelos empíricos para a ondulação geoidal local, que posteriormente foram comparados com os oriundos do GARMIN 12 XL e do MAOGEO2004. A análise dos resultados foi realizada a partir de uma regressão linear entre cada um dos três modelos e o nivelamento tradicional com nível de precisão. Os resultados levantados apontam uma alta correlação entre o modelo empírico de ondulação geoidal local e o programa MAPGEO2004. No entanto, não houve um bom ajuste entre as altitudes ortométricas do modelo empírico e aquelas determinadas pelo receptor GPS de navegação GARMIN 12XL

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This work investigates the initial growth of iron and iron oxides on Ag(001). Surface structure and morphology of both post deposition annealed Fe films (in UHV and O2 atmosphere) as well as reactive grown iron oxide films will be analyzed in detail by low energy electron diffraction (LEED) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The stoichiometry at the surface of the iron oxide films will be determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The main focus of this work is to shed light on the question whether the growth of iron oxide films on Ag(001) is accompanied by the formation of strain reducing dislocation networks, or superstructures as found for other metal substrates in former studies. Here, we will distinguish between Fe films which were post deposition annealed in a thin O2 atmosphere and reactively grown iron oxide films.