Hasil untuk "Natural history (General)"

Kristin Ludewig, Heather A. Shupe, Lizeth K. Vásconez Navas et al.

Wetlands help to regulate the climate by sequestering and storing carbon from the atmosphere into their biomass and soils. Although wetlands can provide valuable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, there is a lack of quantifiable data for different types of wetlands. Teal-green carbon in floodplain forests and blue carbon in coastal and marine environments are the focus of this study. We use two contrasting wetland habitats and explore carbon sequestration and storage mechanisms, current evidence and data gaps, and their potential opportunities to contribute to climate change mitigation. Using a case study of hardwood floodplain forests in Germany, we find that age, structure and hydrological conditions are important factors in carbon sequestration while the evidence shows that sequestration is higher in young forests compared to old ones. Soil carbon stocks are found to be larger in the low elevated active floodplain compared to the higher elevated floodplain highlighting the importance of connectivity between the river and the floodplain. In a second case-study exploring carbon storage in Scottish saltmarshes, similar factors driving carbon storage are seen, including, position in the tidal frame, sediment supply, and sediment type. The policy landscape is used to highlight opportunities to increase the potential contribution of Scottish saltmarshes for climate change mitigation. Although data are limited and gaps exist for other greenhouse gas fluxes, overall, we argue that it is crucial to conserve all remaining riverine and coastal wetlands for their biodiversity and carbon storage function. Where possible and practical, these valuable ecosystems should be restored to increase their potential in this regard. Highlights Blue and teal-green carbon habitats can make an important contribution to carbon sequestration and storage. Blue and teal-green carbon habitats offer multiple ecosystem services in addition to carbon sequestration. Protection and restoration of blue and teal-green carbon habitats provide opportunities for improved climate change mitigation potential.

Hongyu Wang, Yan O. Wang, Guanmin Yuan et al.

Whether latent brucellosis exists prior to symptom onset and predisposes individuals to active disease remains to be determined. We established a novel ELISpot method for brucellosis (B-SPOT) based on host-specific immune. Diagnostic efficacy was evaluated in a testing cohort comprising brucellosis and non-brucellosis participants. A large-scale screening, using serum agglutination test (SAT) and B-SPOT for latent brucellosis, was later performed in Kangping, a brucellosis-endemic area in northern China, followed by a 24-month prospective cohort study to observe the natural development of latent brucellosis without any intervention. Among 41 brucellosis and 57 non-brucellosis participants, the sensitivity of B-SPOT for brucellosis was 95.1%, and the specificity was 98.2%, compared to the combination of blood culture and SAT. 2459 residents were screened, and the prevalence of latent brucellosis was 3.3% (81/2459). Among 63 latent brucellosis cases successfully followed, 33.3% (21/63) progressed to acute brucellosis within 2 years, while none in the control group progressed(p < 0.001). 16/21 (76.2%) progressed within the first six months, and 14/21 (66.7%) presented with joint pain as their initial symptom. B-SPOT (10.94[95%CI 2.48–48.33, p = 0.002]) outperformed SAT (3.04[95%CI 1.14–8.01, p = 0.026]) in predicting the progression of latent brucellosis. Latent brucellosis accounts for 3.3% in the endemic area, among whom 33.3% progressed to acute brucellosis within two years. The first six months are a critical window, and joint pain is the primary initial symptom. B-SPOT demonstrates high diagnostic efficacy for brucellosis disease activity and can better predict the progression of latent brucellosis.

Xiaojing Miao

Establishing a coherent network of area-based management tools (ABMTs) in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is critical for the sustainable development of the ocean, which hinges on effective cooperation between the BBNJ Agreement and existing mechanisms. This paper introduces the concept of institutional complementarity as a novel perspective focused on synergistic potential, exploring pathways for such cooperation. It discusses significant gaps in complementarity between the BBNJ Agreement and existing mechanisms across three core dimensions: strategic objectives, operational rules and management practices, posing substantial challenges to effective cooperation. To address these challenges, this paper proposes stepwise pathways for strengthening institutional complementarity: coordinating objectives from dialogue to shared strategic plans, promoting rule compatibility from scientific guidelines to rule coordination, and enhancing management from collaborative capacity-building to joint actions.

Richard de Grijs

[Abridged] In the late nineteenth century, Mars emerged as one of the most intensively reported astronomical objects in the popular press, driven by favourable oppositions, improved telescopic capabilities and growing speculation regarding planetary habitability. I examine how Mars was interpreted in Australian newspapers between the 1870s and 1899, focusing on the ways in which astronomical knowledge was framed, contextualised and debated within a colonial media environment. Drawing on a large collection of digitised newspaper articles, I analyse how observational authority, instrumental credibility and individual expertise were harnessed in press reporting. The paper situates Australian Mars coverage within a global network of scientific communication dominated by metropolitan centres in Europe and North America, while highlighting the distinctive role played by southern-hemisphere visibility. Australian observatories and observers were frequently positioned as contributors of confirmatory observation rather than interpretive leadership, reinforcing a pattern of locally grounded but internationally oriented scientific engagement. The analysis traces a shift from early emphasis on disciplined observation and measurement to later periods characterised by contested interpretations, particularly surrounding the so-called Martian "canals" and the speculative claims advanced by personalities such as Percival Lowell in the USA. By examining how newspapers mediated between observational astronomy, engineering analogies and popular imagination, this study contributes to a broader understanding of how planetary science entered public discourse beyond metropolitan centres. In doing so, it underscores the active role of colonial newspapers in shaping scientific meaning and situates Australian Mars reporting within the wider history of nineteenth-century astronomical culture.

Ying Huang, Jiacheng Li, Wanbo Li et al.

Vibrio harveyi is a major pathogen in yellow drum (Nibea albiflora) aquaculture, causing significant mortality and economic losses. In this study, using the latest assembled reference genome of yellow drum by our laboratory, we conducted genome-wide association study (GWAS) analysis on 345 individuals (197 susceptible and 148 resistant). The analysis revealed 24 significant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosome 24 within a 217 Kb region. The estimated heritability for all genome-wide SNPs was 0.3578, while the heritability for the 24 significant SNPs was 0.0710. Four candidate genes were identified within this region: Suppressor of Cytokine Signaling 1 (SOCS1), C-type Lectin Domain Family 16A (CLEC16A), Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II Transactivator (CIITA), and Protein Kinase Cβ (PRKCB). Subsequently, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis was performed on transcriptome sequencing data from spleen tissues of 78 individuals from the resistant group. On average, each chromosome harbored 49,396 eQTL loci, with an average of one SNP regulate 1.3 genes. Notably, 22.79% of SNPs showed significant associations with the expression of one or more genes. By integrating GWAS and eQTL data, seven SNPs were identified to have significant associations with regulated genes in the eQTL results. All seven SNPs were found to target the same gene, namely Zinc Finger Protein yd23210 in yellow drum. This study provides genetic markers and candidate genes for molecular breeding of yellow drum against V. harveyi infection, offering insights into the molecular immune mechanisms and potential pathways for genetic improvement of disease resistance traits in this species.

Charles A. Emogor, Lauren Coad, Ben Balmford et al.

Abstract There is limited quantitative evidence of the effects of socio‐economic shocks on biological resource use. Focusing on wild meat hunting, a substantial livelihood and food source in tropical regions, we evaluated the impacts of the shock from Nigeria's coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) lockdown on species exploitation around a global biodiversity hotspot. Using a 3‐year quantitative dataset collected during and after the lockdown (covering 1008 hunter‐months) and matching by time of year, we found that successful hunting trip rates were more frequent during the lockdown, with a corresponding increase in the monthly number, mass, and value of animals caught. Moreover, hunters consumed a larger proportion of wild meat and sold less during lockdown, compared to non‐lockdown periods. These results suggest that local communities relied on wild meat to supplement reduced food and income during the lockdown, buffering the COVID‐19's socio‐economic shock. Our findings also indicate that wild species may be especially vulnerable to increased hunting pressure during socio‐economic shocks.

Victor Brun, Laure Thierry deVille d'Avray, Ma. May Saludsod et al.

Abstract Marine protected areas (MPAs) can be a useful tool to manage coastal ecosystems, delivering both social and ecological outcomes. However, in many instances, relevant data is missing to conduct proper impact assessments, which is key to identifying ecological and social synergies and potential trade‐offs, and to adapting management according to local objectives. The ecological effects of an MPA established in Palawan, Philippines, in 2016, were assessed. The most common species targeted by fisheries were identified by local fishers. Species size and number were collected through underwater visual census with n = 288 belt transects assigned in different sites and locations to ensure to provide both protected and control (fished) sites for the MPA assessment, and baseline data for three new MPAs that were created in 2022. 91 coral‐reef fish species belonging to 12 families were recorded. Mixed effect linear regression was used to compare target fish populations in protected and control sites. Compared to control locations, 5 years after its implementation, the MPA showed significantly higher species richness, abundance, mean size, and biomass while no significant difference was found on the average trophic level between MPA and control sites. Monitoring the early effects of an MPA and collecting baseline data prior the implementation of an MPA network is key for adaptive management.

Mark T. Young, Julia A. Schwab, David Dufeau et al.

During major evolutionary transitions, groups develop radically new body plans and radiate into new habitats. A classic example is cetaceans which evolved from terrestrial ancestors to become pelagic swimmers. In doing so, they altered their air-filled sinuses, transitioning some of these spaces to allow for fluctuations in air capacity and storage via soft tissue borders. Other tetrapods independently underwent land-to-sea transitions, but it is unclear if they similarly changed their sinuses. We use computed tomography to study sinus changes in thalattosuchian crocodylomorphs that transformed from land-bound ancestors to become the only known aquatic swimming archosaurs. We find that thalattosuchian braincase sinuses reduced over their transition, similar to cetaceans, but their snout sinuses counterintuitively expanded, distinct from cetaceans, and that both trends were underpinned by high evolutionary rates. We hypothesize that aquatic thalattosuchians were ill suited to deep diving by their snout sinuses, which seem to have remained large to help drain their unusual salt glands. Thus, although convergent in general terms, thalattosuchians and cetaceans were subject to different constraints that shaped their transitions to water. Thalattosuchians attained a stage similar to less pelagic transitional forms in the cetacean lineage (late protocetid-basilosaurid) but did not become further specialized for ocean life.

Leonardo Castellani, Anna Gabetti

The formalism of generalized quantum histories allows a symmetrical treatment of space and time correlations, by taking different traces of the same history density matrix. We recall how to characterize spatial and temporal entanglement in this framework. An operative protocol is presented, to map a history state into the ket of a static composite system. We show, by examples, how the Leggett-Garg and the temporal CHSH inequalities can be violated in our approach.

Buster P. Mogonong, Jolene T. Fisher, David Furniss et al.

Rural landscapes in South Africa experience high conversion rates due to intense land use; however, the changes are site specific and depend on the socio-economic and political history of the area. Land cover change (LCC) was assessed in response to socio-economic and political factors in uThukela Municipal District, KwaZulu-Natal, using Landsat imagery from 1984 to 2014, while making comparisons to other studies in South Africa. Socio-economic/political data were used to gain insights into the observed LCC patterns. Land cover was classified using a random forest classifier, and accuracies ranging from 87% to 92% were achieved. Systematic and intensity analysis methods were used to describe patterns, rates, and transitions of LCC in Imbabazane (ILM) and Okhahlamba (OLM) local municipalities. The results showed a reduced rate of change intensity from 3.4% to 0.9% in ILM and from 3.1% to 1.1% in OLM between 1984 and 2014. Grassland was persistent, covering over 70% in both local municipalities between 1984 and 2014. Although persistent, grassland experienced respective losses of 3.7% and 14.3% in both observation periods in ILM and of 10.2% and 13.3% in OLM. During the analysis period, settlements and cropland gained actively in both local municipalities. The changes represent a degree of population, local authority, and people’s perception as influencers of land use and LCC. It is therefore argued that socio-economic and political changes can potentially influence land use and LCC; however, natural ecosystems can persist under those conditions, and this requires more research efforts. Significance: This study contributes towards a growing knowledge and understanding of land cover change studies in marginalised landscapes in South Africa. The findings enforce the notion that natural vegetation systems can be altered by human-induced land use such as expansion of settlement and commercial agricultural. We show that in recent times there has been a decline in the overall rate of land cover conversion, and a high persistence of grassland amid global change, although the quality of the vegetation needs further research. We argue that the changes observed in marginalised landscapes are potentially driven by socio-economic and political dynamics.

Charles W. Sanders II, Stephen F. Spear, Kristina Black et al.

Abstract River otters (Lontra canadensis) are key predators in North Carolina's aquatic systems, but they are often seen as competitors by anglers and fish hatcheries. River otter diets typically consist of fish and crayfish, but also include occasional herpetofauna, mammals, and birds. While standard diet studies focus on identification of prey through manual examination of stomach contents and feces, metabarcoding DNA analysis has become more popular to determine the presence or frequency of species that are often missed, misidentified, or underestimated. We collected river otter carcasses from licensed trappers and fur dealers across North Carolina from the 2009–10 trapping season through the 2015–16 season. We conducted necropsies and analyzed the stomach contents using standard observational methods and metabarcoding DNA analysis. We manually examined 522 river otter stomachs, of which 377 contained prey items. Decapods (crustaceans) were identified in 41% of stomachs and made up similar percentages within each Furbearer Management Unit (FMU). The order Perciformes composed the majority (62%) of fish prey across all stomach samples. Coastal Plain river otters primarily consumed crustaceans (50%) and fish (40%). Piedmont and Mountain river otters consumed fish (32% and 42%, respectively) most often followed by crustaceans (62% and 50%, respectively). Prey selection was similar between the sexes. Out of 368 samples, metabarcoding DNA examination was able to reliably match 164 prey items to species, 5 classes, 18 orders, 25 families, and 42 genera. Fishes made up 33% of the identifications, particularly Perciformes (13%), Cypriniformes (7%), and Siluriformes (5%). Twelve percent of identifications was made up by Amphibia, split evenly by Anura and Urodela. No birds or reptiles were detected in the Mountain or Piedmont FMUs, and no mammals were detected in the Coastal Plain or Mountain FMU. Overall, river otters in North Carolina consume a large variety of prey that varied regionally. The manual examination provided identifications that were not provided by the DNA examination (i.e., crayfish, brown snakes), while the DNA examination provided a more accurate identification of the broad array of prey items. To understand the composition of annual river otter diets we encourage managers to expand research to evaluate river otter diets year‐round and incorporate additional noninvasive methods (e.g., scat surveys) throughout the year.

Leah Valdes, Hailey Scofield

Abstract Many bumble bee species are declining worldwide. Disease and habitat loss are two contributors to these declines, yet little is known about disease transmission within bumble bee colonies or bumble bee nesting habitat requirements. These gaps are especially wide for Arctic species, as prior bumble bee research focuses disproportionately on the contiguous United States, southern Canada, and Europe. Here, we describe the nesting habitat, spatial distribution, and nest architecture of 10 frigid bumble bee (Bombus frigidus) nests found in the low Arctic in western Alaska. In these nests, we observed a novel nest architecture, the “outhouse,” that consisted of an additional subterranean cavity containing concentrated fecal materials and observed that the bees continued to defecate in one or a few locations outside of the main nest cavity when transplanted to the laboratory. Finally, we measured fecal‐borne trypanosome parasites in frigid bumble bee workers in this region. Together, our findings provide natural history information on this Arctic bee species and suggest that the outhouse architecture could function as a social immunity trait to reduce the transmission of fecal‐borne pathogens within the nest.

Yulong Li, Andy Zeng, Shuran Song

Most successes in autonomous robotic assembly have been restricted to single target or category. We propose to investigate general part assembly, the task of creating novel target assemblies with unseen part shapes. As a fundamental step to a general part assembly system, we tackle the task of determining the precise poses of the parts in the target assembly, which we we term ``rearrangement planning''. We present General Part Assembly Transformer (GPAT), a transformer-based model architecture that accurately predicts part poses by inferring how each part shape corresponds to the target shape. Our experiments on both 3D CAD models and real-world scans demonstrate GPAT's generalization abilities to novel and diverse target and part shapes.

Yongchao Chen, Rujul Gandhi, Yang Zhang et al.

Temporal Logic (TL) can be used to rigorously specify complex high-level specification for systems in many engineering applications. The translation between natural language (NL) and TL has been under-explored due to the lack of dataset and generalizable model across different application domains. In this paper, we propose an accurate and generalizable transformation framework of English instructions from NL to TL, exploring the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) at multiple stages. Our contributions are twofold. First, we develop a framework to create a dataset of NL-TL pairs combining LLMs and human annotation. We publish a dataset with 28K NL-TL pairs. Then, we finetune T5 models on the lifted versions (i.e., the specific Atomic Propositions (AP) are hidden) of the NL and TL. The enhanced generalizability originates from two aspects: 1) Usage of lifted NL-TL characterizes common logical structures, without constraints of specific domains. 2) Application of LLMs in dataset creation largely enhances corpus richness. We test the generalization of trained models on five varied domains. To achieve full NL-TL transformation, we either combine the lifted model with AP recognition task or do the further finetuning on each specific domain. During the further finetuning, our model achieves higher accuracy (>95%) using only <10% training data, compared with the baseline sequence to sequence (Seq2Seq) model.

Jingjing Tong, Eric B. Knox, Clifford W. Morden et al.

Abstract Background CYCLOIDEA (CYC)-like transcription factors pattern floral symmetry in most angiosperms. In core eudicots, two duplications led to three clades of CYC-like genes: CYC1, CYC2, and CYC3, with orthologs of the CYC2 clade restricting expression dorsally in bilaterally symmetrical flowers. Limited data from CYC3 suggest that they also play a role in flower symmetry in some asterids. We examine the evolution of these genes in Campanulaceae, a group that contains broad transitions between radial and bilateral floral symmetry and 180° resupination (turning upside-down by twisting pedicle). Results We identify here all three paralogous CYC-like clades across Campanulaceae. Similar to other core eudicots, we show that CamCYC2 duplicated near the time of the divergence of the bilaterally symmetrical and resupinate Lobelioideae. However, in non-resupinate, bilaterally symmetrical Cyphioideae, CamCYC2 appears to have been lost and CamCYC3 duplicated, suggesting a novel genetic basis for bilateral symmetry in Cyphioideae. We additionally, utilized qRT-PCR to examine the correlation between CYC-like gene expression and shifts in flower morphology in four species of Lobelioideae. As expected, CamCYC2 gene expression was dorsoventrally restricted in bilateral symmetrical flowers. However, because Lobelioideae have resupinate flowers, both CamCYC2A and CamCYC2B are highly expressed in the finally positioned ventral petal lobes, corresponding to the adaxial side of the flower relative to meristem orientation. Conclusions Our sequences across Campanulaceae of all three of these paralogous groups suggests that radially symmetrical Campanuloideae duplicated CYC1, Lobelioideae duplicated CYC2 and lost CYC3 early in their divergence, and that Cyphioideae lost CYC2 and duplicated CYC3. This suggests a dynamic pattern of duplication and loss of major floral patterning genes in this group and highlights the first case of a loss of CYC2 in a bilaterally symmetrical group. We illustrate here that CYC expression is conserved along the dorsoventral axis of the flower even as it turns upside-down, suggesting that at least late CYC expression is not regulated by extrinsic factors such as gravity. We additionally show that while the pattern of dorsoventral expression of each paralog remains the same, CamCYC2A is more dominant in species with shorter relative finally positioned dorsal lobes, and CamCYC2B is more dominant in species with long dorsal lobes.

Lasha Abzianidze, Konstantinos Kogkalidis

We present a framework for deriving inference relations between Dutch sentence pairs. The proposed framework relies on logic-based reasoning to produce inspectable proofs leading up to inference labels; its judgements are therefore transparent and formally verifiable. At its core, the system is powered by two $λ$-calculi, used as syntactic and semantic theories, respectively. Sentences are first converted to syntactic proofs and terms of the linear $λ$-calculus using a choice of two parsers: an Alpino-based pipeline, and Neural Proof Nets. The syntactic terms are then converted to semantic terms of the simply typed $λ$-calculus, via a set of hand designed type- and term-level transformations. Pairs of semantic terms are then fed to an automated theorem prover for natural logic which reasons with them while using the lexical relations found in the Open Dutch WordNet. We evaluate the reasoning pipeline on the recently created Dutch natural language inference dataset, and achieve promising results, remaining only within a $1.1-3.2{\%}$ performance margin to strong neural baselines. To the best of our knowledge, the reasoning pipeline is the first logic-based system for Dutch.

Nicole Barbour, Nicole Barbour, George L. Shillinger et al.

Quantifying early life movements is essential to understanding migratory pathways and habitat use that can impact individuals’ success later in life. To gauge how neonatal movements set the stage for later habitat use, we tracked neonate leatherback turtles (n = 94) with acoustic tags from Pacuare, Costa Rica, in 2016 and 2018. We analyzed movements using a first passage time analysis and random walk models, the results of which indicated neonates followed a fixed compass direction as they traveled away from shore and that strong currents in these areas resulted in advection. We combined the tracking data with concurrent environmental variables in a generalized additive mixed model framework. Our results showed the south-east current flow in this area has spatial and temporal structure consistent with large-scale geostrophic currents and not tidal current or local wind speed influences. After accounting for advection by currents, true neonate swimming speed was significantly related to current speed, first passage time, and the year. Neonates had three main response strategies to currents above 0.5 m s–1, with most increasing their swimming speed and the rest maintaining either a constant or decreased swimming speed. Neonates were significantly larger in 2018 than in 2016 but their average swimming speed was not significantly related to body size, indicating that environmental factors were more important contributors to their dispersal. We conclude that abiotic factors, including the strength and direction of the currents, significantly affect the swimming and dispersal strategy of neonate leatherback turtles and these results can help to inform strategies for releases of neonate turtles from hatcheries, future tracking studies, and conservation efforts.

Leoni Mack, Jenni Attila, Eva Aylagas et al.

A multitude of anthropogenic pressures deteriorate the Baltic Sea, resulting in the need to protect and restore its marine ecosystem. For an efficient conservation, comprehensive monitoring and assessment of all ecosystem elements is of fundamental importance. The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission HELCOM coordinates conservation measures regulated by several European directives. However, this holistic assessment is hindered by gaps within the current monitoring schemes. Here, twenty-two novel methods with the potential to fill some of these gaps and improve the monitoring of the Baltic marine environment are examined. We asked key stakeholders to point out methods likely to improve current Baltic Sea monitoring. We then described these methods in a comparable way and evaluated them based on their costs and applicability potential (i.e., possibility to make them operational). Twelve methods require low to very low costs, while five require moderate and two high costs. Seventeen methods were rated with a high to very high applicability, whereas four methods had moderate and one low applicability for Baltic Sea monitoring. Methods with both low costs and a high applicability include the Manta Trawl, Rocket Sediment Corer, Argo Float, Artificial Substrates, Citizen Observation, Earth Observation, the HydroFIA®pH system, DNA Metabarcoding and Stable Isotope Analysis.

Lewin M.

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (b) ideas (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme.

Sadaf Gulshad, Jan Hendrik Metzen, Arnold Smeulders

In this paper we aim to explore the general robustness of neural network classifiers by utilizing adversarial as well as natural perturbations. Different from previous works which mainly focus on studying the robustness of neural networks against adversarial perturbations, we also evaluate their robustness on natural perturbations before and after robustification. After standardizing the comparison between adversarial and natural perturbations, we demonstrate that although adversarial training improves the performance of the networks against adversarial perturbations, it leads to drop in the performance for naturally perturbed samples besides clean samples. In contrast, natural perturbations like elastic deformations, occlusions and wave does not only improve the performance against natural perturbations, but also lead to improvement in the performance for the adversarial perturbations. Additionally they do not drop the accuracy on the clean images.