Productivity of Ospreys, Pandion haliaetus, Affected by Water Levels Near Loon Lake, Saskatchewan, 1975-2002

Between 1975 and 2002, diminished breeding success of Ospreys was associated with drought and falling lake levels in the western half of our study area near the town of Loon Lake, west-central Saskatchewan. Only 46% of nest attempts were successful in the west compared to 72% in the east, producing 0.88 young per accessible nest in the west and 1.42 in the east. Breeding success was greater in the eastern half, where water levels were stable, in spite of increased human use of the resort lakes there. Our unique long-term Canadian data base results support Ogden's 1977 prediction that Osprey productivity may decrease when water levels drop and fish populations are reduced

Evaluating Flexible Transport Solutions

Flexible transport services (FTS) have been of increasing interest in developed countries as a bridge between the use of personal car travel and fixed route transit services. This paper reports on findings from a recent study in Queensland Australia, which identified lessons from an international review and implications for Australia. Potential strategic directions, including a vision, mission, key result areas, strategies, and identified means of measuring performance are described. Evaluation criteria for assessing flexible transport proposals were developed, and approaches to identifying and assessing needs and demands outlined. The use of emerging technologies is also a key element of successful flexible transport services

Development of High Technologies as an Indicator of Modern Industry in the Eu

The article tries to classify the EU states in terms of the advancement of structural changes in their industries on the basis of the increase in the share of advanced technologies in total industrial production, labour, added value, and surplus. In the times of the knowledge-based economy the ability to produce high-tech goods, the demand for which is growing much faster than for traditional goods, indicates the level of modernity of industry. The dynamic growth of the demand for knowledge-based high-tech goods results from the evolution of consumer habits, which are predominantly driven by educated and rich societies who demand that their sophisticated needs met. An important role in stimulating this demand is played by modern media as they instantly deliver information on the latest technical developments and are very efficient in transferring patterns of consumerism. The ability to adapt the structure of production to the needs of the market is crucial in defining a state's position in the international exchange of goods. This is due to the fact that the national technology is tightly interwoven with export abilities

Pain shared, pain halved? Cooperation as a coping strategy for innovation barriers

The paper analyses the relationship between the perception of barriers to innovation and the firm’s propensity to cooperate to mitigate their effect. First, we look at whether cooperation with research organizations or private firms is associated with experiencing different types of barriers, for example, financial constraints, lack of human capital or uncertain market demand. Second, we test whether experiencing several types of barriers simultaneously has a super-modular effect on the propensity to cooperate tout court, and the choice of cooperation partner. We find that having to face a single, specific constraint leads to firms ‘sharing the pain’ with cooperation partners—both research organization and other firms. However, the results of a super-modularity test show that having to cope with different barriers is a deterrent to establishing cooperation agreements, especially when firms lack finance, adequate skills and information on technology or markets. The paper adds to the innovation literature by identifying the factors associated with firms’ coping with different barriers by applying a selective cooperation strategy

Co-creation of Value in IT Service Processes Using Semantic MediaWiki

Abstract: Enterprises are substituting their own IT-Systems by services provided by external providers. This provisioning of services may be done in an industrialized way, separating the service provider from the consumer. However, using industrialized services diminishes the capability to differentiate from competitors. To counter this, collaborative service processes based on the co-creation of value between service providers and prosumers are of huge importance. The approach presented shows how the co-creation of value in IT-service processes can profit from social software, using the example of the Semantic MediaWiki

The Link between Innovation and Productivity in Estonia’s Service Sectors

The emerging literature on the characteristics of innovation processes in the service sector has paid relatively little attention to the links between innovation and productivity. In this paper we investigate how the innovation-productivity relationship differs across various subbranches of the service sector. For the analysis we use the CDM structural model consisting of equations for innovation expenditures, innovation output, productivity and exports. We use data from the community innovation surveys for Estonia. We show that innovation is associated with increased productivity in the service sector. The results indicate surprisingly that the effect of innovation on productivity is stronger in the less knowledge-intensive service sectors, despite the lower frequency of innovative activities and the results of earlier literature. Non-technological innovation only plays a positive role in some specifications, despite its expected importance especially among the service firms. An additional positive channel of the effects of innovation on productivity may function through increased exports.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133027/1/wp1012.pd

Measurement of the Lifetime Difference Between B_s Mass Eigenstates

We present measurements of the lifetimes and polarization amplitudes for B_s --> J/psi phi and B_d --> J/psi K*0 decays. Lifetimes of the heavy (H) and light (L) mass eigenstates in the B_s system are separately measured for the first time by determining the relative contributions of amplitudes with definite CP as a function of the decay time. Using 203 +/- 15 B_s decays, we obtain tau_L = (1.05 +{0.16}/-{0.13} +/- 0.02) ps and tau_H = (2.07 +{0.58}/-{0.46} +/- 0.03) ps. Expressed in terms of the difference DeltaGamma_s and average Gamma_s, of the decay rates of the two eigenstates, the results are DeltaGamma_s/Gamma_s = (65 +{25}/-{33} +/- 1)%, and DeltaGamma_s = (0.47 +{0.19}/-{0.24} +/- 0.01) inverse ps.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; as published in Physical Review Letters on 16 March 2005; revisions are for length and typesetting only, no changes in results or conclusion

Top quark mass measurement using the template method at CDF

We present a measurement of the top quark mass in the lepton+jets and dilepton channels of $t\bar{t}$ decays using the template method. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.6 fb$^{-1}$ of $p\bar{p}$ collisions at Tevatron with $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV, collected with the CDF II detector. The measurement is performed by constructing templates of three kinematic variables in the lepton+jets and two kinematic variables in the dilepton channel. The variables are two reconstructed top quark masses from different jets-to-quarks combinations and the invariant mass of two jets from the $W$ decay in the lepton+jets channel, and a reconstructed top quark mass and $m_{T2}$, a variable related to the transverse mass in events with two missing particles, in the dilepton channel. The simultaneous fit of the templates from signal and background events in the lepton+jets and dilepton channels to the data yields a measured top quark mass of $M_{top} = 172.1 \pm 1.1(stat) \pm 0.9(syst).$Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.

Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using 318 pb^{-1} of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We select ttbar decays into the final states e nu + jets and mu nu + jets, in which at least one b quark from the t-quark decays is identified using a secondary vertex-finding algorithm. Assuming a top quark mass of 178 GeV/c^2, we measure a cross section of 8.7 +-0.9 (stat) +1.1-0.9 (syst) pb. We also report the first observation of ttbar with significance greater than 5 sigma in the subsample in which both b quarks are identified, corresponding to a cross section of 10.1 +1.6-1.4(stat)+2.0-1.3 (syst) pb.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Review Letters, 7 page

Evidence for the exclusive decay Bc+- to J/psi pi+- and measurement of the mass of the Bc meson

We report first evidence for a fully reconstructed decay mode of the B_c^{\pm} meson in the channel B_c^{\pm} \to J/psi \pi^{\pm}, with J/psi \to mu^+mu^-. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of 360 pb$^{-1} in p\bar{p} collisions at 1.96 TeV center of mass energy collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We observe 14.6 \pm 4.6 signal events with a background of 7.1 \pm 0.9 events, and a fit to the J/psi pi^{\pm} mass spectrum yields a B_c^{\pm} mass of 6285.7 \pm 5.3(stat) \pm 1.2(syst) MeV/c^2. The probability of a peak of this magnitude occurring by random fluctuation in the search region is estimated as 0.012%.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Version 3, accepted by PR