3,541 research outputs found
Taylor's law and related allometric power laws in New Zealand mountain beech forests: the roles of space, time and environment
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02622Taylor's law says that the variance of population density of a species is proportional to a power of mean population density. Density–mass allometry says that mean population density is proportional to a power of mean biomass per individual. These power laws predict a third, variance–mass allometry: the variance of population density of a species is proportional to a power of mean biomass per individual. We tested these laws using 10 censuses of New Zealand mountain beech trees in 250 plots over 30 years at spatial scales from 5 m to kilometers. We found that: 1) a single-species forest not disrupted by humans obeyed all three laws; 2) random sampling explained the parameters of Taylor's law at a large spatial scale in 8 of 10 censuses, but not at a fine spatial scale; 3) larger spatial scale increased the exponent of Taylor's law and decreased the exponent of variance–mass allometry (this is the first empirical demonstration that the latter exponent depends on spatial scale), but affected the exponent of density–mass allometry slightly; 4) despite varying natural disturbance, the three laws varied relatively little over the 30 years; 5) self-thinning and recruiting plots had significantly different intercepts and slopes of density–mass allometry and variance–mass allometry, but the parameters of Taylor's law were not usually significantly affected; and 6) higher soil calcium was associated with higher variance of population density in all censuses but not with a difference in the exponent of Taylor's law, while elevation above sea level and soil carbon-to-nitrogen ratios had little effect on the parameters of Taylor's law. In general, the three laws were remarkably robust. When their parameters were influenced by spatial scale and environmental factors, the parameters could not be species-specific indicators. We suggest biological mechanisms that may explain some of these findings.JEC acknowledges U.S. National Science Foundation grant DMS-1225529 and the assistance of Priscilla K. Rogerson. RBA was supported by Landcare Research. This project benefited from many years of input by staff of the former New Zealand Forest Service, Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Research Institute and currently Landcare Research
A Foundry of Human Activities and Infrastructures
Direct representation knowledgebases can enhance and even provide an
alternative to document-centered digital libraries. Here we consider realist
semantic modeling of everyday activities and infrastructures in such
knowledgebases. Because we want to integrate a wide variety of topics, a
collection of ontologies (a foundry) and a range of other knowledge resources
are needed. We first consider modeling the routine procedures that support
human activities and technologies. Next, we examine the interactions of
technologies with aspects of social organization. Then, we consider approaches
and issues for developing and validating explanations of the relationships
among various entities
The role of mentorship in protege performance
The role of mentorship on protege performance is a matter of importance to
academic, business, and governmental organizations. While the benefits of
mentorship for proteges, mentors and their organizations are apparent, the
extent to which proteges mimic their mentors' career choices and acquire their
mentorship skills is unclear. Here, we investigate one aspect of mentor
emulation by studying mentorship fecundity---the number of proteges a mentor
trains---with data from the Mathematics Genealogy Project, which tracks the
mentorship record of thousands of mathematicians over several centuries. We
demonstrate that fecundity among academic mathematicians is correlated with
other measures of academic success. We also find that the average fecundity of
mentors remains stable over 60 years of recorded mentorship. We further uncover
three significant correlations in mentorship fecundity. First, mentors with
small mentorship fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 37% larger than
expected mentorship fecundity. Second, in the first third of their career,
mentors with large fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 29% larger
than expected fecundity. Finally, in the last third of their career, mentors
with large fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 31% smaller than
expected fecundity.Comment: 23 pages double-spaced, 4 figure
DNA Footprints: Using Parasites to Detect Elusive Animals, Proof of Principle in Hedgehogs
The Western European Hedgehog (Erinaceous europaeus) is a nocturnal animal that is in decline in much of Europe, but the monitoring of this species is subjective, prone to error, and an inadequate basis for estimating population trends. Here, we report the use of Crenosoma striatum, a parasitic nematode specific to hedgehogs as definitive hosts, to detect hedgehog presence in the natural environment. This is achieved through collecting and sampling the parasites within their intermediate hosts, gastropoda, a group much simpler to locate and sample in both urban and rural habitats. C. striatum and Crenosoma vulpis were collected post-mortem from the lungs of hedgehogs and foxes, respectively. Slugs were collected in two sessions, during spring and autumn, from Skomer Island (n = 21), which is known to be free of hedgehogs (and foxes); and Pennard, Swansea (n = 42), known to have a healthy hedgehog population. The second internal transcribed spacer of parasite ribosomal DNA was used to develop a highly specific, novel, PCR based multiplex assay. Crenosoma striatum was found only at the site known to be inhabited by hedgehogs, at an average prevalence in gastropods of 10% in spring and autumn. The molecular test was highly specific: One mollusc was positive for both C. striatum and C. vulpis, and differentiation between the two nematode species was clear. This study demonstrates proof of principle for using detection of specific parasite DNA in easily sampled intermediate hosts to confirm the presence of an elusive nocturnal definitive host species. The approach has great potential as an adaptable, objective tool to supplement and support existing ecological survey methods
The effects of childbirth on the pelvic-floor
Basically, vaginal delivery is associated with the risk of pelvic floor damage. The pelvic floor sequelae of childbirth includes anal incontinence, urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. Pathophysiology, incidence and risk factors for the development of the respective problems are reviewed. Where possible, recommendations for reducing the risk of pelvic floor damage are given
High field level crossing studies on spin dimers in the low dimensional quantum spin system NaT(CO)(HO) with T=Ni,Co,Fe,Mn
In this paper we demonstrate the application of high magnetic fields to study
the magnetic properties of low dimensional spin systems. We present a case
study on the series of 2-leg spin-ladder compounds
NaT(CO)(HO) with T = Ni, Co, Fe and Mn. In all
compounds the transition metal is in the high spin configuation. The
localized spin varies from S=1 to 3/2, 2 and 5/2 within this series. The
magnetic properties were examined experimentally by magnetic susceptibility,
pulsed high field magnetization and specific heat measurements. The data are
analysed using a spin hamiltonian description. Although the transition metal
ions form structurally a 2-leg ladder, an isolated dimer model consistently
describes the observations very well. This behaviour can be understood in terms
of the different coordination and superexchange angles of the oxalate ligands
along the rungs and legs of the 2-leg spin ladder. All compounds exhibit
magnetic field driven ground state changes which at very low temperatures lead
to a multistep behaviour in the magnetization curves. In the Co and Fe
compounds a strong axial anisotropy induced by the orbital magnetism leads to a
nearly degenerate ground state and a strongly reduced critical field. We find a
monotonous decrease of the intradimer magnetic exchange if the spin quantum
number is increased
The Pioneer Anomaly
Radio-metric Doppler tracking data received from the Pioneer 10 and 11
spacecraft from heliocentric distances of 20-70 AU has consistently indicated
the presence of a small, anomalous, blue-shifted frequency drift uniformly
changing with a rate of ~6 x 10^{-9} Hz/s. Ultimately, the drift was
interpreted as a constant sunward deceleration of each particular spacecraft at
the level of a_P = (8.74 +/- 1.33) x 10^{-10} m/s^2. This apparent violation of
the Newton's gravitational inverse-square law has become known as the Pioneer
anomaly; the nature of this anomaly remains unexplained. In this review, we
summarize the current knowledge of the physical properties of the anomaly and
the conditions that led to its detection and characterization. We review
various mechanisms proposed to explain the anomaly and discuss the current
state of efforts to determine its nature. A comprehensive new investigation of
the anomalous behavior of the two Pioneers has begun recently. The new efforts
rely on the much-extended set of radio-metric Doppler data for both spacecraft
in conjunction with the newly available complete record of their telemetry
files and a large archive of original project documentation. As the new study
is yet to report its findings, this review provides the necessary background
for the new results to appear in the near future. In particular, we provide a
significant amount of information on the design, operations and behavior of the
two Pioneers during their entire missions, including descriptions of various
data formats and techniques used for their navigation and radio-science data
analysis. As most of this information was recovered relatively recently, it was
not used in the previous studies of the Pioneer anomaly, but it is critical for
the new investigation.Comment: 165 pages, 40 figures, 16 tables; accepted for publication in Living
Reviews in Relativit
Cross modal perception of body size in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
While the perception of size-related acoustic variation in animal vocalisations is well documented, little attention has been given to how this information might be integrated with corresponding visual information. Using a cross-modal design, we tested the ability of domestic dogs to match growls resynthesised to be typical of either a large or a small dog to size- matched models. Subjects looked at the size-matched model significantly more often and for a significantly longer duration than at the incorrect model, showing that they have the ability to relate information about body size from the acoustic domain to the appropriate visual category. Our study suggests that the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms at the basis of size assessment in mammals have a multisensory nature, and calls for further investigations of the multimodal processing of size information across animal species
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