Software that recognises different dolphin species by their whistles

New Delhi -- UPA-Left candidate Mohammad Hamid Ansari and NDA candidate Najma Heptullah will file their nomination papers for the August 10 Vice-Presidential election here today.

Former diplomat and chairman of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) Ansari had served as India‘s Permanent Representative at the United Nations and Ambassador to Iran and Afghanistan.

Ansari is known for his role in ensuring compensation to the victims of the Gujarat riots and pushing for a complete re-look into the relief and rehabilitation for riot victims since 1984.

On the other hand, Najma, 67, had been closely associated with the Congress party for over three decades, before joining BJP ahead of the 2004 general elections.

The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) or the Third Front nominee Rashid Masood has already filed his nomination papers for the Vice-Presidential poll.

Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat on Sa

turday resigned from the post after UPA-Left candidate Pratibha Patil defeated him in the presidential race.

The polling for the Vice President‘s election will be held on August 10. The last date for the withdrawal of names is July 26.

The Vice-President is elected by the members of the Electoral College consisting of the members of both houses of Parliament in accordance with the system of proportional representation. The voting takes place by the means of the single transferable vote.

The Electoral College for the Vice-President election consists of 245 members from Rajya Sabha and 545 Lok Sabha members. (ANI)

London, July 23 (ANI): Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, have developed a new software that identifies different dolphin species by their whistles.

Researchers say identifying species by their whistles could improve the accuracy of surveys, which are normally performed by observing the animals from boat and do not always provide a clear perspective.

"Marine mammals spend most of their time out of sight and underwater, so observer teams can miss a lot of the animals. To make matters worse, some species are shy of boats," said Julie Oswald of the Scripps Institution.

To pick up the hidden dolphins, and make identification easier at the same time, Oswald and her colleagues have now turned to acoustics.

Dolphins make a range of sound, including different types of clicks and species-specific whistles, mostly of frequencies between 2 and 30 kilohertz, with each species combining the frequencies in their own way.

Underwater microphones attached to a survey boat pick up the sounds and feed them onto an on-board computer, which then compares the whistle frequencies from the microphone with samples in a database to pin down the species that emanated these sounds.

In tests, the software identified up to eight species of dolphins near a survey boat with up to 80 per cent accuracy.

The study appears in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, reports New Scientist. (ANI)