Weaning and introduction to a solid diet result in physiological stress in piglets. This can be offset by using complex diets. The terms ‘complexity’ and ‘complex diets’ are used in practice and academia but are not precisely defined. The aim of this review was to identify the ingredients in weaner diets, their inclusion levels and how the number of ingredients or complexity of diets influences weaner performance, intestinal and systemic health, environmental sustainability and antibiotic use. Not all diets are formulated equally. Some prioritize meeting the weaner’s nutritional needs, while other diets seek to align health promotion and adaptation to the environment. Diet composition is of vital importance for young piglets, thus the components needed in these complex diets must be defined. Healthy, environmentally adapted pigs have excellent growth performance. We therefore recommend use of a new term, ‘gut health supporting diets’, to encompass the many concepts associated with diet complexity.

Fish swimming together in schools interact via multiple sensory pathways, including vision, acoustics and hydrodynamics, to coordinate their movements. Disentangling the specific role of each sensory pathway is an open and important question. Here, we propose an information-theoretic approach to dissect interactions between swimming fish based on their movement and the flow velocity at selected measurement points in the environment. We test the approach in a controlled mechanical system constituted by an actively pitching airfoil and a compliant flag that simulates the behaviour of two fish swimming in line. The system consists of two distinct types of interactions – hydrodynamic and electromechanical. By using transfer entropy of the measured time series, we unveil a strong causal influence of the airfoil pitching on the flag undulation with an accurate estimate of the time delay between the two. By conditioning the computation on the flow-speed information, recorded by laser Doppler velocimetry, we discover a significant reduction in transfer entropy, correctly implying the presence of a hydrodynamic pathway of interaction. Similarly, the electromechanical pathway of interaction is identified accurately when present. The study supports the potential use of information-theoretic methods to decipher the existence of different pathways of interaction between schooling fish.

A new fossil of Lycidae, Domipteron gaoi n. gen. n. sp., is described from Miocene Dominican amber. The fossil exhibits a combination of characteristics found in both Calopterini and Eurrhacini. To determine its systematic placement, we conducted phylogenetic analyses based on adult morphological features. Our analyses indicate that the new fossil belongs to Calopterini.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/d0f9a12e-aaed-48b0-a1dd-2c0991ef8b36

The ARLE GPS tool provides computer-aided design support for solving problems with the spatial planning and design of houses, using a robust design model with physical-biological and cost strategies. This enables architects to eliminate uncertainties and to make robust decisions by applying computational thinking to decision making and action implementation. This support enables the architect to deal with the complexity arising from the interrelationships between the design variables and transforms the spatial planning problem, which is conceptualized as illdefined, into a well-defined problem. A scientific method is used, based on mathematical modeling of the action-decision field of design geometric variables, rather than a drawn method involving sketches. This tool acts as an aid mechanism, an assembler, a simulator, and an evaluator of geometric prototypes (virtual or graphical) and can be used to systematize the assembly or modeling of the FPL structure, particularly with respect to the performance required of a house. This candidate solution, provided by the tool, defines the spatial dimensions of the rooms in the house, the topological data of the assembly sequence, and the connections between rooms. The architect converts this virtual prototype into a graphical FPL prototype, which is then modeled, refined and evaluated continuously and objectively with the aid of ARLE GPS until a solution is obtained that satisfies the requirements, constraints and objectives of the problem. In this way, a solution to the problem (i.e., the project) can be captured and generated.