TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

A Late Pleistocene woman from Tham Lod, Thailand: The influence of today on a face from the past

Creating a facial appearance for individuals from the distant past is often highly problematic, even when verified methods are used. This is especially so in the case of non-European individuals, as the reference populations used to estimate the face tend to be heavily biased towards the average facial variation of recent people of European descent. To evaluate the problem, a facial approximation of a young woman from the Late Pleistocene rockshelter of Tham Lod in north-western Thailand was compared against the average facial variation of datasets from recent populations. The analysis indicated that the Tham Lod facial approximation was neither overtly recent in facial morphology, nor overtly European. The case is of particular interest as the Tham Lod individual probably belonged to a population ancestral to extant Australo-Melanesian peoples

Fifty years of journal Kinesiology: Bibliometric characteristics of categorized papers

The aim of this paper was to present the development of the journal Kinesiology – International Journal of Fundamental and Applied Kinesiology over the five decades of its publication through the analysis of the articles using bibliometric indicators. The sample consisted of 1083 articles published over the period of 50 years, from the 1st volume in 1971 until the 52nd volume in 2020. The analysis of the articles revealed that the most common articles were original scientific papers, while the least represented articles were categorized as conference papers. From 1971 to 1996, most articles were written in the Croatian language, but since 1997, the articles have been written only in the English language. An analysis of the cited references in the last decade of the journal’s publication was made in order to point out the patterns of scientific communication in kinesiology and to determine the recognizability of the published papers at the international level. Since 2006, greater visibility of Kinesiology – International Journal of Fundamental and Applied Kinesiology has been enabled by providing access to full texts of publications through the Portal of Scientific Journals of Croatia – Hrčak, whereas the articles published until the end of 2005 were retrogradely digitized

LITERATURE IN THE FIELD OF SPINAL CORD INJURY: AN ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT: Presents an analysis of the literature in the field of Spinal Cord Injury as indexed the MEDLINE database in the Pubmed for the period 2008 to the 2017. It is noticed that the total of 28303 records on the literature of Spinal Cord Injury is covered. It is also noticed that the maximum number of records was published during year 2017. It was observed that the Journal Article consists of 41.73% and other publication types with different percentages. English language forming 95.07% of the total and other languages follows with minimum records. The United States has contributed the highest number of records in the study. 29 primary journals grouped in zone-1 published 3941 journal articles, the second zone comprises of 238 journals published 4031 journal articles and 1790 journals grouped in the third zone published 3840 journal articles. Of the 29 Journals in zone-1, twelve journals are published in the United States and followed by other countries. In zone-1 & 2; out of 267 journals, 37.45% frequently cited journals are the United States and India contributed eight journals

Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918

"Combining history of science and a history of universities with the new imperial history, Universities in Imperial Austria 1848–1918: A Social History of a Multilingual Space by Jan Surman analyzes the practice of scholarly migration and its lasting influence on the intellectual output in the Austrian part of the Habsburg Empire. The Habsburg Empire and its successor states were home to developments that shaped Central Europe's scholarship well into the twentieth century. Universities became centers of both state- and nation-building, as well as of confessional resistance, placing scholars if not in conflict, then certainly at odds with the neutral international orientation of academe