Developing Topics.

Background: Semantic processing relies on temporal brain regions, including medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, that are the first to be affected by tau pathology in Alzheimer's disease (AD). A widely used task to assess semantic memory is the category fluency. Performance on this task was demonstrated to be impaired since the prodromal stage of AD and associated to the structural integrity of the MTL.

Multiple pygmy blue whale acoustic populations in the Indian Ocean: whale song identifies a possible new population.

Blue whales were brought to the edge of extinction by commercial whaling in the twentieth century and their recovery rate in the Southern Hemisphere has been slow; they remain endangered. Blue whales, although the largest animals on Earth, are difficult to study in the Southern Hemisphere, thus their population structure, distribution and migration remain poorly known. Fortunately, blue whales produce powerful and stereotyped songs, which prove an effective clue for monitoring their different 'acoustic populations.

An open access dataset for developing automated detectors of Antarctic baleen whale sounds and performance evaluation of two commonly used detectors.

Since 2001, hundreds of thousands of hours of underwater acoustic recordings have been made throughout the Southern Ocean south of 60° S. Detailed analysis of the occurrence of marine mammal sounds in these circumpolar recordings could provide novel insights into their ecology, but manual inspection of the entirety of all recordings would be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. Automated signal processing methods have now developed to the point that they can be applied to these data in a cost-effective manner.

On the reliability of acoustic annotations and automatic detections of Antarctic blue whale calls under different acoustic conditions.

Evaluation of the performance of computer-based algorithms to automatically detect mammalian vocalizations often relies on comparisons between detector outputs and a reference data set, generally obtained by manual annotation of acoustic recordings. To explore the reproducibility of these annotations, inter- and intra-analyst variability in manually annotated Antarctic blue whale (ABW) Z-calls are investigated by two analysts in acoustic data from two ocean basins representing different scenarios in terms of call abundance and background noise. Manual annotations exhibit strong inter- and intra-analyst variability, with less than 50% agreement between analysts.

Identification of two potential whale calls in the southern Indian Ocean, and their geographic and seasonal occurrence.

Since passive acoustic monitoring is widely used, unidentified acoustic signals from marine mammals are commonly reported. The signal characteristics and emission patterns are the main clues to identify the possible sources. In this study, the authors describe two previously unidentified sounds, recorded at up to five widely-spaced sites (30 × 30 degree area) in the southern Indian Ocean, in 2007 and between 2010 and 2015.

Seasonal and Diel Vocalization Patterns of Antarctic Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia) in the Southern Indian Ocean: A Multi-Year and Multi-Site Study.

Passive acoustic monitoring is an efficient way to provide insights on the ecology of large whales. This approach allows for long-term and species-specific monitoring over large areas. In this study, we examined six years (2010 to 2015) of continuous acoustic recordings at up to seven different locations in the Central and Southern Indian Basin to assess the peak periods of presence, seasonality and migration movements of Antarctic blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus intermedia).

Low-frequency sound level in the Southern Indian Ocean.

This study presents long-term statistics on the ambient sound in the Southern Indian Ocean basin based on 2 years of data collected on six widely distributed autonomous hydrophones from 47°S to 4°S and 53°E to 83°E. Daily mean power spectra (10-100 Hz) were analyzed in order to identify the main sound sources and their space and time variability. Periodic signals are principally associated with the seasonal presence of three types of blue whales and fin whales whose signatures are easily identified at specific frequencies.

Automated detection of Antarctic blue whale calls.

This paper addresses the problem of automated detection of Z-calls emitted by Antarctic blue whales (B. m. intermedia).