bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Indoor Operations by FMCW Millimeter Wave SAR Onboard Small UAS: A Simulation Approach
Authors: Scannapieco Antonio Fulvio , Renga Alfredo , Moccia Antonio
Published: April 2016

A dedicated system simulator is presented in this paper for indoor operations onboard small Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) by a novel millimeter wave radar sensor. The sensor relies on the principle of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) applied to a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar system. Input to the simulator are both design parameters for Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which should be able to cope with the stringent requirements set by indoor operations, and information about platform navigation and observed scene. The scene generation task is described in detail. This is based on models for point target response on either a completely absorbing background or fluctuating background and ray tracing (RT) techniques. Results obtained from scene processing are finally discussed, giving further insights on expected results from high-resolution observation of an assigned control volume by this novel SAR sensor.
PPARgene: A Database of Experimentally Verified and Computationally Predicted PPAR Target Genes
Authors: Fang Li , Zhang Man , Li Yanhui , Liu Yan , Cui Qinghua , Wang Nanping
Published: April 2016

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are ligand-activated transcription factors of the nuclear receptor superfamily. Upon ligand binding, PPARs activate target gene transcription and regulate a variety of important physiological processes such as lipid metabolism, inflammation, and wound healing. Here, we describe the first database of PPAR target genes, PPARgene. Among the 225 experimentally verified PPAR target genes, 83 are for PPARα, 83 are for PPARβ/δ, and 104 are for PPARγ. Detailed information including tissue types, species, and reference PubMed IDs was also provided. In addition, we developed a machine learning method to predict novel PPAR target genes by integratingin silicoPPAR-responsive element (PPRE) analysis with high throughput gene expression data. Fivefold cross validation showed that the performance of this prediction method was significantly improved compared to thein silicoPPRE analysis method. The prediction tool is also implemented in the PPARgene database.
Pericardial Metastasis Induced Tamponade from Urothelial Carcinoma: A Rare Entity
Authors: Khan Rafay , Jehangir Waqas , Tulpule Sunil , Osman Mohamed , Singh Shilpi , Sen Shuvendu
Published: April 2016

Urothelial carcinoma in a few cases may result in cardiac metastasis. A rare presentation of this condition is its diagnosis as a result of cardiac tamponade. Tamponade is an unusual entity as a result of urothelial carcinoma and has only been reported in four cases. There have also been only a total of fifteen cases of cardiac metastasis from this form of malignancy. It is through this discussion that we emphasize the importance of early detection and monitoring of cardiac symptoms with the implementation of echocardiogram imaging. Although not feasible in all patients it may be considered in those presenting with cardiac and pulmonary symptoms. In this case we discuss the presentation of a 71-year-old gentleman with a history of urothelial carcinoma after cystectomy and while on chemotherapy presented with new onset atrial fibrillation and later was diagnosed with cardiac tamponade as a result of malignant metastasis.
A Protection Mechanism against Malicious HTML and JavaScript Code in Vulnerable Web Applications
Authors: Liu Shukai , Yan Xuexiong , Wang Qingxian , Zhao Xu , Chai Chuansen , Sun Yajing
Published: April 2016

The high-profile attacks of malicious HTML and JavaScript code have seen a dramatic increase in both awareness and exploitation in recent years. Unfortunately, exiting security mechanisms provide no enough protection. We propose a new protection mechanism named PMHJ based on the support of both web applications and web browsers against malicious HTML and JavaScript code in vulnerable web applications. PMHJ prevents the injection attack of HTML elements with a random attribute value and the node-split attack by an attribute with the hash value of the HTML element. PMHJ ensures the content security in web pages by verifying HTML elements, confining the insecure HTML usages which can be exploited by attackers, and disabling the JavaScript APIs which may incur injection vulnerabilities. PMHJ provides a flexible way to rein the high-risk JavaScript APIs with powerful ability according to the principle of least authority. The PMHJ policy is easy to be deployed into real-world web applications. The test results show that PMHJ has little influence on the run time and code size of web pages.
Estimates for Parameter Littlewood-Paleygκ⁎Functions on Nonhomogeneous Metric Measure Spaces
Authors: Lu Guanghui , Tao Shuangping
Published: April 2016

Let(X,d,μ)be a metric measure space which satisfies the geometrically doubling measure and the upper doubling measure conditions. In this paper, the authors prove that, under the assumption that the kernel ofMκ⁎satisfies a certain Hörmander-type condition,Mκ⁎,ρis bounded from Lebesgue spacesLp(μ)to Lebesgue spacesLp(μ)forp≥2and is bounded fromL1(μ)intoL1,∞(μ). As a corollary,Mκ⁎,ρis bounded onLp(μ)for1<p<2. In addition, the authors also obtain thatMκ⁎,ρis bounded from the atomic Hardy spaceH1(μ)into the Lebesgue spaceL1(μ).
G-Protein-Coupled Receptor 35 Mediates Human Saphenous Vein Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Migration and Endothelial Cell Proliferation
Authors: McCallum Jennifer E. , Mackenzie Amanda E. , Divorty Nina , Clarke Carolyn , Delles Christian , Milligan Graeme , Nicklin Stuart A.
Published: April 2016

Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) migration and proliferation is central to neointima formation in vein graft failure following coronary artery bypass. However, there are currently no pharmacological interventions that prevent vein graft failure through intimal occlusion. It is hence a therapeutic target. Here, we investigated the contribution of GPR35 to human VSMC and endothelial cell (EC) migration, using a scratch-wound assay, and also the contribution to proliferation, using MTS and BrdU assays, in in vitro models using recently characterized human GPR35 ortholog-selective small-molecule agonists and antagonists. Real-time PCR studies showed GPR35 to be robustly expressed in human VSMCs and ECs. Stimulation of GPR35, with either the human-selective agonist pamoic acid or the reference agonist zaprinast, promoted VSMC migration in the scratch-wound assay. These effects were blocked by coincubation with either of the human GPR35-specific antagonists, CID-2745687 or ML-145. These GPR35-mediated effects were produced by inducing alterations in the actin cytoskeleton via the Rho A/Rho kinase signaling axis. Additionally, the agonist ligands stimulated a proliferative response in ECs. These studies highlight the potential that small molecules that stimulate or block GPR35 activity can modulate vascular proliferation and migration. These data propose GPR35 as a translational therapeutic target in vascular remodeling.
Novel Approach to Cardiovascular Outcome Prediction in Haemodialysis Patients
Authors: Chiu Diana , Abidin Nik , Johnstone Laura , Chong Michelle , Kataria Vaidehi , Sewell Janet , Sinha Smeeta , Kalra Philip A. , Green Darren
Published: April 2016

Background: Cardiovascular mortality is high in haemodialysis (HD) patients. Arterial stiffness and global longitudinal strain (GLS) are important non-atheromatous cardiovascular risk predictors. No study has encompassed both parameters in a combined model for prediction of outcomes in HD patients. This is important because left ventricular (LV) dysfunction can result from fibrotic remodelling secondary to increased arterial stiffness. Methods: Two hundred and nineteen HD patients had pulse wave velocity (PWV) and echocardiography (including GLS) assessments. Patients were followed-up until death, transplantation or November 16, 2015, whichever happened first. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to determine factors associated with PWV and GLS. A multivariable Cox regression model investigated factors associated with all-cause, cardiac death and events. Results: One hundred and ninety eight HD patients had full datasets (median age 64.2, 68.7% males) with a mean LV ejection fraction (LVEF) of 61.7 ± 10.1% and GLS -13.5 ± 3.3%; 51% had LV hypertrophy. Forty eight deaths (15 cardiac) and 44 major cardiac events occurred during a median follow-up of 27.6 (25th-75th percentile, 17.3-32.7) months. In separate survival models, PWV and GLS were independently associated with all-cause mortality; however, in a combined model, LV mass indexed to height2.7 (LVMI/HT2.7; adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.02, 95% CI 1.00-1.04) and PWV (adjusted HR 1.23, 95% CI 1.03-1.47) were significant. PWV was neither associated with cardiac death nor associated with related cardiac events. However, GLS was associated with cardiac death (adjusted HR 1.24, 95% CI 1.00-1.54) and cardiac events (adjusted HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.03-1.25). Conclusions: PWV and LVMI/HT2.7 were superior to GLS in prediction of all-cause mortality. However, GLS was associated with cardiac death and events even when accounting for LVEF and LVMI/HT2.7.
Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Chronic Dialysis Population: A Multicenter Cohort Study
Authors: Cheung Chi Yuen , Chan Gary C.W. , Chan Siu Kim , Ng Flora , Lam Man Fai , Wong Sunny S.H. , Chak Wai Leung , Chau Ka Foon , Lui Sing Leung , Lo Wai Kei , Tang Sydney C.W.
Published: April 2016

Background: Different studies in the past have shown that the risk of cancer development is increased in chronic dialysis patients. However, data concerning the cancer risk in Asian dialysis patients was scarce. More importantly, there was lack of information about the cancer-specific mortality in dialysis patients. Methods: A multicenter retrospective cohort study of 6,254 patients who started either chronic peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis between 1994 and 2014 in 4 renal units in Hong Kong. Patterns of cancer incidence and mortality in our dialysis patients were compared with those of the general population using standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) and standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) respectively. Results: With 14,887 person-years of follow-up, 220 cancers were recorded. The SIR of all cancers was 1.44 (95% CI 1.26-1.65). A trend of an increased SIR was observed in young patients and within the first year of dialysis. Colorectum was the most common site of cancer (20%) while kidney cancer carried the highest risk (SIR 12.28, 95% CI 8.44-17.08). The SMR of all cancers was 0.91 (95% CI 0.72-1.13) and only kidney cancer had higher cancer mortality risk (SMR 4.92, 95% CI 1.80-10.70). SMR was highest in young patients and then decreased with age. Conclusions: The incidence of cancers in our chronic dialysis patients was elevated. Our findings of substantially increased risks in young patients, particularly in relation to kidney cancer, suggest that we can adopt a more individualized approach to cancer screening in chronic dialysis patients.
Acute Retinal Necrosis Associated with Epstein-Barr Virus in a Patient Undergoing Immunosuppressive Therapy
Authors: Oe Chiaki , Hiraoka Miki , Tanaka Sachie , Ohguro Hiroshi
Published: April 2016

Acute retinal necrosis (ARN) is a rapidly progressive and severe retinitis resulting in a poor visual outcome. Infections caused by herpes viruses such as herpes simplex virus (HSV) types 1 and 2 or the varicella zoster virus (VZV) are known to be implicated in the development of ARN. In the present study, an 80-year-old female with ARN was examined. She had been affected with rheumatoid arthritis and had taken methotrexate for over 10 years. Her right eye showed clinical features of ARN, and her left eye showed mild retinitis. The genomic DNA in the aqueous humor and vitreous fluid from her right eye were analyzed by a comprehensive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to screen infectious pathogens including viruses. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was detected from both specimens, but neither HSV or VZV nor cytomegalovirus was detected. She underwent intraocular surgery following systemic corticosteroid and acyclovir applications. However, although the retinitis of her right eye was extinguished, the final visual outcome was blindness due to optic nerve atrophy. There are few reports indicating that EBV is associated with ARN development. The present findings suggest that EBV alone can be the causative agent of ARN.
Gestão da Informação por meio físico e digital em Biblioteca Escolar: identificação de interesses dos usuários e tomada de decisão
Authors: Novelletto Douglas Guioroni Guaitorini , Vianna William Barbosa , Dutra Moisés Lima
Published: April 2016

O objetivo do estudo foi identificar aspectos do comportamento de usuários de uma Biblioteca Universitária e Escolar do Município de Blumenau – SC, para subsidiar a qualificação da oferta de acervo digital de caráter educacional, bem como o desenvolvimento de políticas de atendimento ao usuário e desenvolvimento de coleções. Justifica-se pela utilidade de conhecer o comportamento do usuário para subsidiar o desenvolvimento de políticas de acervo digital, desenvolvimento de coleções e orçamento para investir na aquisição de Bases de Dados e Livros Digitais (ebooks). A metodologia utilizada é exploratória e quantitativa com aplicação de questionário. Os resultados apontaram para relevância e preferência pelo acesso a conteúdos digitais de forma prática e contínua, também contribuem para tomada de decisão quanto ao desenvolvimento de coleções.
A condição docente do bibliotecário escolar na educação básica
Authors: Silva Eduardo Valadares da , Ventorim Silvana
Published: April 2016

Este artigo tematiza a função do bibliotecário escolar no contexto do debate sobre o trabalho e a condição docente por meio de uma pesquisa bibliográfica qualitativa. Tem como objetivo analisar como o bibliotecário escolar, compreendido como um trabalhador docente que atua na educação básica, desempenha diferentes atividades educativas com repercussão no processo de formação dos estudantes. A principal fundamentação teórica é fruto da pesquisa “Trabalho Docente na Educação Básica no Brasil”, realizada pelo Grupo de Estudos sobre Política Educacional e Trabalho Docente da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Constata-se, conclusivamente, que os bibliotecários escolares pouco participam das discussões relativas ao projeto político-pedagógico das escolas em que atuam, ainda que estas reconheçam sua importância no processo de desenvolvimento e formação dos estudantes por eles atendidos, o que demanda uma ressignificação da atuação desses profissionais no espaço escolar e das perspectivas teóricas que a norteiam.
Coronary Collateral Growth Induced by Physical Exercise
Authors: Möbius-Winkler Sven , Uhlemann Madlen , Adams Volker , Sandri Marcus , Erbs Sandra , Lenk Karsten , Mangner Norman , Mueller Ulrike , Adam Jennifer , Grunze Martin , Brunner Susanne , Hilberg Thomas , Mende Meinhard , Linke Axel P. , Schuler Gerhard
Published: April 2016

Background—

A well-developed coronary collateral circulation provides a potential source of blood supply in coronary artery disease. However, the prognostic importance and functional relevance of coronary collaterals is controversial with the association between exercise training and collateral growth still unclear.

Methods and Results—

This prospective, open-label study randomly assigned 60 patients with significant coronary artery disease (fractional flow reserve ≤0.75) to high-intensity exercise (group A, 20 patients) or moderate-intensity exercise (group B, 20 patients) for 4 weeks or to a control group (group C, 20 patients). The primary end point was the change of the coronary collateral flow index (CFI) after 4 weeks. Analysis was based on the intention to treat. After 4 weeks, baseline CFI increased significantly by 39.4% in group A (from 0.142±0.07 at beginning to 0.198±0.09 at 4 weeks) in comparison with 41.3% in group B (from 0.143±0.06 to 0.202±0.09), whereas CFI in the control group remained unchanged (0.7%, from 0.149±0.09 to 0.150±0.08). High-intensity exercise did not lead to a greater CFI than moderate-intensity training. After 4 weeks, exercise capacity, V
o
2
peak and ischemic threshold increased significantly in group A and group B in comparison with group C with no difference between group A and group B.

Conclusions—

A significant improvement in CFI was demonstrated in response to moderate- and high-intensity exercise performed for 10 hours per week.

Clinical Trial Registration—

URL:
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov
. Unique identifier: NCT01209637.
Scatting behaviour of the pygmy bluetongue lizard
Authors: Ebrahimi Mehregan , Godfrey Stephanie S. , Fenner Aaron L. , Bull C. Michael
Published: April 2016

We used video recordings of 29 pygmy bluetongue lizards for ten days of each month during their spring and summer activity season to observe scatting behaviour. This was possible because resident lizards rarely moved from their single entrance burrows. We used these observations to ask questions about social communication that might be relevant to conservation of this endangered species. We found lizards produced more scats in the middle of the day than earlier or later in the day, and more scats in the spring and early summer than later in the summer. Lizards moved an average of 68.54 ± 0.09 cm from their burrow entrance to deposit scats, taking an average of 2.4 min per defecation trip. They tended to use the same path direction for most defecation trips, but used more different directions if there were more close neighbours, strongly supporting a hypothesis that scats mark burrow ownership. The results suggested that conservation managers might reduce stress for relocated lizards by removing scat piles in the early stages of settlement.
E.P. Sanders and the ‘Trial’ of Jesus
Authors: Bond Helen K.
Published: April 2016

This study outlines E.P. Sanders’ views on the Jewish ‘trial’ of Jesus, paying particular attention to the following topics: ‘who ran what’ at the time of Jesus; the involvement of the Jewish leaders; the role and character of the high priest Caiaphas; what sources we can rely on at this point; and the differences between Sanders’ views in Jesus and Judaism and the later (and more popular) Historical Figure of Jesus. It concludes by suggesting ways in which scholars can build on Sanders’ insights, not only in terms of historical reconstruction but also as a starting point for a fuller appreciation of the evangelists’ narrative and creative art.
Jesus and the Pathetic Wicked
Authors: Powell Mark Allan
Published: April 2016

The proposal of E. P. Sanders that Jesus promised the kingdom to sinners without requiring them to repent has been rejected by most scholars but is here revived in a modified form. Sanders’s essential proposal may be outlined as a series of ten propositions, only one of which seems completely preposterous. This last point, however, may also appear quite reasonable if we remember that many of the persons regarded as sinners in Jesus’s context would have been slaves or, at least, people who lived in such dire straits that they were not able to do the things that would have qualified as repentance in the minds of most religious people of the day (including Jesus). Two examples of such people are considered: tax collectors and prostitutes. The article concludes that Jesus probably did promise the kingdom to some tax collectors and prostitutes who due to their social situation were unable to amend their lives in the manner he would otherwise have required.
The Blessings of the New Moses
Authors: Quarles Charles
Published: April 2016

This article examines and critiques major views regarding the Old Testament background for the Matthean Beatitudes. It first evaluates the traditional view that Isaiah 61 was the primary Old Testament influence. Second, it examines and critiques N.T. Wright’s view that the juxtaposition of Mt. 5.3–11 and 23.13–33 is part of a rough chiasm intended to associate Jesus’ teaching with the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 27–30. Finally, it offers a fresh proposal that borrows the best of Wright’s insights, but hopefully advances the discussion of the theological purpose of the Beatitudes by suggesting that Matthew’s Beatitudes are reminiscent of Moses’ final blessing of Israel in Deut. 33.29.
Typification of three Lamarck’s names in Cistus (Cistaceae)
Authors: FERRER-GALLEGO PEDRO PABLO
Published: April 2016

Typification of three Lamarck’s names in Cistus (Cistaceae) is discussed. Lectotypes for two names currently included in Halimium are proposed: H. atriplicifolium and H. lasianthum subsp. alyssoides. The name Cistus involucratus, synonym of H. ocymoides is also lectotypified. The designation of the nomenclatural types is based on Lamarck’s original material conserved in the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris) at P (the historical collections: Isnard, Jussieu, Lamarck) and the references cited in the respective protologues.
Gordius gonzalezi, a new species of horsehair worms (Nematomorpha) from Spain
Authors: SCHMIDT-RHAESA Andreas , MARTÍNEZ JESÚS
Published: April 2016

A new species, Gordius gonzalezi, is described from the Iberian Peninsula, from the Sierra de los Tormantos in Central Spain. Characteristic for the species is the presence of multiple short spines on the cuticle, not present in this form in any other Gordius species. Additionally, two further specimens are reported, which could not be determined to species level. One male of the genus Gordius is close to G. aquaticus and one female with regular areoles could belong either to the genus Gordius or to Gordionus.
On the Impact and Future Benefits of AMDAR Observations in Operational Forecasting: Part II: Water Vapor Observations
Authors: Petersen Ralph Alvin , Cronce Lee , Mamrosh Richard , Baker Randy , Pauley Patricia
Published: April 2016

Although wind and temperature observations from commercial aircraft have been shown to improve operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) on global and regional scales, the quality and potential importance of newly available moisture observations are less well recognized. Because moisture changes often occur at much smaller scales than wind and temperature variations, these temporally and spatially frequent moisture observations can have exceptionally large impacts on forecasts of disruptive weather events and could help offset the dwindling number of global moisture observations. Currently, more than 148 aircraft-based Water Vapor Sensing Systems (WVSS; 139 operating in the US and 9 in Europe) provide specific humidity observations en route and in 1200 profiles made daily during takeoff/landing. Results of a series of assessments comparing data from initial WVSS sensors installed on 25 United Parcel Service (UPS) Boeing 757 aircraft with collocated raobs show agreement to within 0.5 g kg–1, with minimal biases. Intercomparisons of observations made among nearby aircraft agree to better than 0.2 g kg–1. The combined results suggest that the WVSS measurements are at least as accurate as water vapor observations from high-quality raobs. Information regarding observed spatial and temporal moisture variability could be important in optimizing the use of these observations in future mesoscale assimilation systems. Forecasts of disruptive weather events made by NWS and airline forecasters demonstrate the benefits obtained from combined temperature/moisture/wind profiles acquired during aircraft ascents and descents. Finally, initial NWP impact studies show that WVSS reports that include moisture obtained throughout the day have greater influence than twice-daily raob humidity data on contiguous U.S. (CONUS) forecasts for 24 h and beyond.
Updraft Buoyancy within and Moistening by Cumulonimbi prior to MJO Convective Onset in a Regional Model
Authors: Powell Scott W.
Published: April 2016

Processes responsible for widespread development of moderately deep cumulonimbi during a transition period before onset of two large-scale convective events associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation in late 2011 are investigated. A regional model (WRF) is capable of rapidly producing an approximately 3-day-long transition period prior to MJO convective onset similar to observed transition periods, during which moderately deep cumulonimbi were prevalent. During transition periods, evaporation in precipitating elements and horizontal advection of moisture away from the clouds in the nearby clear-air environment contributed to humidification below 400 hPa. Nonprecipitating clouds were present in the model mostly between 900 and 950 hPa and had no major impact on tropospheric moistening. Whether nonprecipitating cumuli grew into moderately deep cumulonimbi largely depended on the buoyancy of updrafts that extended into the 700–850-hPa layer. As mean environmental temperatures decreased, the mean cumulus updraft buoyancy in this layer became less negative. The start of two simulated transition periods were marked by rapid decreases in environmental temperature caused by reduction in environmental subsidence and/or increased cooling by advection or radiation. Small, widespread changes in the difference between 700- and 850-hPa environmental and updraft temperatures—on the order of 0.1 K and less than 0.4 K—had important ramifications for whether shallow clouds grew vertically into moderately deep clouds that moistened the troposphere and made it conducive to MJO convective onset.
Limb Correction of MODIS and VIIRS Infrared Channels for the Improved Interpretation of RGB Composites
Authors: Elmer Nicholas J. , Berndt Emily , Jedlovec Gary J.
Published: April 2016

Red–green–blue (RGB) composite imagery combines information from several spectral channels into one image to aid in the operational analysis of atmospheric processes. However, infrared channels are adversely affected by the limb effect, the result of an increase in optical pathlength of the absorbing atmosphere between the satellite and the earth as viewing zenith angle increases. This study develops a technique to quickly correct for limb effects in both clear and cloudy regions using latitudinally and seasonally varying limb correction coefficients for real-time applications. These limb correction coefficients account for the increase in optical pathlength in order to produce limb-corrected RGB composites. The improved functionality of limb-corrected RGB composites is demonstrated by multiple case studies of Air Mass and Dust RGB composites using Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Suomi–National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imagery. However, the limb correction can be applied to any polar-orbiting sensor infrared channels, provided the proper limb correction coefficients are calculated. Corrected RGB composites provide multiple advantages over uncorrected RGB composites, including increased confidence in the interpretation of RGB features, improved situational awareness for operational forecasters, and the ability to use RGB composites from multiple sensors jointly to increase the temporal frequency of observations.
Unaccounted uncertainty from qPCR efficiency estimates entails uncontrolled false positive rates
Authors: Bilgrau Anders E. , Falgreen Steffen , Petersen Anders , Kjeldsen Malene K. , Bødker Julie S. , Johnsen Hans E. , Dybkær Karen , Bøgsted Martin
Published: April 2016

Background

Accurate adjustment for the amplification efficiency (AE) is an important part of real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) experiments. The most commonly used correction strategy is to estimate the AE by dilution experiments and use this as a plug-in when efficiency correcting the ΔΔC
q
. Currently, it is recommended to determine the AE with high precision as this plug-in approach does not account for the AE uncertainty, implicitly assuming an infinitely precise AE estimate. Determining the AE with such precision, however, requires tedious laboratory work and vast amounts of biological material. Violation of the assumption leads to overly optimistic standard errors of the ΔΔC
q
, confidence intervals, and p-values which ultimately increase the type I error rate beyond the expected significance level. As qPCR is often used for validation it should be a high priority to account for the uncertainty of the AE estimate and thereby properly bounding the type I error rate and achieve the desired significance level.

Results

We suggest and benchmark different methods to obtain the standard error of the efficiency adjusted ΔΔC
q
using the statistical delta method, Monte Carlo integration, or bootstrapping. Our suggested methods are founded in a linear mixed effects model (LMM) framework, but the problem and ideas apply in all qPCR experiments. The methods and impact of the AE uncertainty are illustrated in three qPCR applications and a simulation study. In addition, we validate findings suggesting that MGST1 is differentially expressed between high and low abundance culture initiating cells in multiple myeloma and that microRNA-127 is differentially expressed between testicular and nodal lymphomas.

Conclusions

We conclude, that the commonly used efficiency corrected quantities disregard the uncertainty of the AE, which can drastically impact the standard error and lead to increased false positive rates. Our suggestions show that it is possible to easily perform statistical inference of ΔΔC
q
, whilst properly accounting for the AE uncertainty and better controlling the false positive rate.
Global Ideas in Local Places: The Humanities in Environmental Management
Authors: Robin Libby
Published: April 2016

Land management has become a multi-faceted enterprise, with professionals, locals and others contributing variously to the outcomes, increasingly working in partnership arrangements all over the world. However, each local place has a different suite of ‘experts’ speaking for its future. This paper explores four key drivers of conservation initiatives: place, landscape, biodiversity and livelihood, and how these shape environmental management in the Desert Channels region of south-western Queensland and in the Quantock hills in Somerset, England. The aim is to show how the question of who is an authority on place contrasts in these two ecologically distinct places, and at different times in the period from 1945 to the present. The two cases demand very different scales of management, and build on different cultural traditions, but they share a surprising number of commonalities, particularly about who are the experts in managing the future of the natural world. The commonalities reflect global forces that are changing the environmental management of local places. The paper considers the value of art, history and the broader humanities in enriching and critiquing global scientific and management ideals and in empowering communities to engage in dialogue about managing their local places.
Wonders with the Sea: Rachel Carson's Ecological Aesthetic and the Mid-Century Reader
Authors: Hagood Amanda
Published: April 2016

Recent scholarship on the work of the great nature writer, Rachel Carson, posits that her landmark book, Silent Spring (1962)—often credited with igniting the modern environmental movement—is best understood in the context of her earlier, extraordinarily popular publications on the natural history of the oceans, which helped establish her as a talented and trustworthy translator of scientific concepts into literary prose. This essay builds upon that idea, showing how Carson's The Sea Around Us (1951) and The Edge of the Sea (1955) not only shaped public understandings of ocean ecology, but also spurred a public passion for all things oceanographic, best embodied in a wave of “Carsonalia”—consumer items and experiences ranging from hats, to Book of the Month Club editions, to liner notes for the NBC Symphony's recording of Debussy's La Mer. While these items inspired and expressed the “sense of wonder” that was critical to Carson's ecological aesthetic, I argue, they also subsumed the new “frontier” of the world's oceans into the technological imperialism of the post-World War II United States. As new technologies allowed military and scientific researchers to see deeper into the oceanic depths than ever before, images of the open ocean were domesticated through consumer markets into viewable, readable, and even wearable forms. This commodification of the ocean, and of Carson's ecocentric message, both enabled and frustrated her attempts to promote ecological literacy. Yet they also reveal much about our contemporary relationship to the world's oceans, which remain sites of both enduring wonder and extraordinary exploitation.
The Care of Migrants: Telemetry and the Fragile Wild
Authors: Reinert Hugo
Published: April 2016

Drawing on a multi-sited study of transnational efforts to safeguard the highly endangered Lesser White-fronted Goose (Anser Erythropus), the text develops an argument about a certain “biopolitics of the wild”—a particular mode of governing nonhuman life, rooted in certain conditions of visibility and engagement. As a wild avian population, the Lessers are known and managed primarily through practices of asymmetrical intimacy, such as field observation and telemetry. These practices, in turn, determine the emergence of biopower in a specific modality, as a power that takes hold of its object—and generates it— in a mode of constitutive withdrawal. Outlining the shape and parameters of this withdrawn presence, the essay locates “the wild” at a complex, awkward juncture in contemporary human-nonhuman relations: simultaneously an object of control and withdrawal, absence and intimacy, wildness and impurity; a site of complex and intractable controversies—but also, perhaps, of hope.
Other Kinds of Violence: Wendell Berry, Industrialism, and Agrarian Pacifism
Authors: Major William
Published: April 2016

This article examines the need to understand pacifism and environmentalism as essentially consonant philosophies and practices, just as a proper theorization of ecocide must also include the violence inherent to industrialism and militarism. Few contemporary writers understand the stakes involved in this conflation as well as Wendell Berry, and few have had more occasion to enact the entwined values of pacifism and environmentalism than he has. Berry therefore marries pacifist politics to a land ethic of care, a union from which emerges an environmentalism highly critical of the violence of American corporate capitalism and militarism, the apotheosis of which can be seen in the guise of war (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the “War on Terror”). Moreover, such violence has its domestic ecocidal analogy, best evidenced by strip mining and mountaintop removal. Berry's union of peaceableness and agrarian environmentalism does, however, deserve critical examination, for it often rests upon the construction of a sometimes frustrating disconnection between a precious and benign domesticity and a theoretically corrupt public sphere. To be sure, in his reworking of the fluid boundaries between the private and public through which his agrarian ethics is often articulated, Berry simultaneously invokes and disavows a separation he clearly understands to be artificial. In Berry's peaceful agrarian vision, then, the agrarian pacifist who is also by definition an environmentalist must draw upon enormous internal resources if she is to revolutionize the economies of ruin that characterize modern life.
A Little Flute Music: Mimicry, Memory, and Narrativity
Authors: Powys Vicki , Taylor Hollis , Probets Carol
Published: April 2016

A lyrebird chick was raised in captivity in the 1920s in Australia's New England Tablelands, or so the story goes. The bird mimicked the sounds of the household's flute player, learning two tunes and an ascending scale. When released back into the wild, his flute-like songs and timbre spread throughout the local lyrebird population. We count ourselves among those who admire the sonic achievements of this bioregion's “flute lyrebirds.” These Superb Lyrebirds (Menura novaehollandiae) do indeed deliver an unusual and extraordinarily complex, flute-like territorial song, although often with a musical competence exceeding what a human flutist could achieve. In this paper, we engage with both the living and the dead across a wide-ranging cast of characters, linking up in the here and now and grasping a hand across the span of many years. Memory and narrativity are pertinent to the at times conflicting stories and reminiscences from archival and contemporary sources. Ultimately, accounts of “flute lyrebirds” speak to how meaning evolves in the tensions, boundaries, and interplay between knowledge and imagination. We conclude that this story exceeds containment, dispersed as it is across several fields of inquiry and a number of individual memories that go in and out of sync.
Val Plumwood's Philosophical Animism: Attentive Interactions in the Sentient World
Authors: Rose Deborah Bird
Published: April 2016

Towards the end of her eventful and productive life, Val Plumwood was turning toward Indigenous people and cultures as a way of encountering the lived experience of ideas she was working with theoretically. At the same time, she was defining herself as a philosophical animist. As I understand her term, she was making connections with animism as a worldview, but rather than mimic or appropriate indigenous animisms she was developing a foundation that could be argued from within western philosophy. Her beautiful definition of philosophical animism is that it “opens the door to a world in which we can begin to negotiate life membership of an ecological community of kindred beings.” Thus, her animism, like indigenous animisms, was not a doctrine or orthodoxy, but rather a path, a way of life, a mode of encounter. In the spirit of open-ended encounter, I aim to bring her work into dialogue with some of my Australian Aboriginal teachers. More specifically, I focus on developing an enlarged account of active listening, considering it as the work participants engage in as they inter-act with other sentient creatures. I take a country or place based perspective, engaging with life on the inside of the webs and patterns of connection.

An earlier version of this paper was presented as the Val Plumwood Memorial Lecture at the Minding Animals Conference, held in Newcastle, Australia in July 2009.
Compost Politics: Experimenting with Togetherness in Vermicomposting
Authors: Abrahamsson Sebastian , Bertoni Filippo
Published: April 2016

Emerging from the question of how to live together with our planet, more-than-human approaches to interspecies relations have often presented ‘cozy’ versions of conviviality (Whatmore 2002; Haraway 2008; Hinchliffe 2010). This was usually set against a (supposedly) exclusionary politics of nature, in a move that betrayed a still largely humanist ethics. From the focus on friendly companions, to the attention to practices of care or living-together, the notion of companion species and their entanglements with humans has been polarized towards a pleasant and ‘nice’ version of coexistence. But, dealing with composting, it becomes clear that relations with the environment are never so neat and clean. What are, then, the modes of being together with the ‘dirty’ side of the ‘green’? What practices emerge at the mundane interstices of the ‘big picture’ of a functional ecology? Wasting, eating, rotting, consuming, transforming and becoming-with are brought together in a variety of ways in practices of composting-with earthworms. Reporting on our own and others' attempts to ‘live-together’ with earthworms, this paper tracks the non-relations and asymmetries of the transformations of more-than-human materialities inside (and outside) domestic composting bins. We argue that the example of living-together with dung earthworms sheds light on the interplays between attachment and detachment (Candea 2010), shifting the notion of conviviality from a green and comfortable ‘democratic collective’ (Latour 2004) to a messy, yet constantly productive and on-going coexistence.
Glacial Time and Lonely Crowds: The Social Effects of Climate Change as Internet Spectacle
Authors: Grebowicz Margret
Published: April 2016

This paper is part of my larger project to underscore the significance of critical theories of mass society for the environmental humanities. I offer a reading of James Balog's Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), in particular the time-lapse films of glaciers receding, which I argue present a unique example of what Guy Debord calls the “tautological” nature of spectacle, its capacity to serve as its own evidence at the same time as it becomes a mode of relation among people. My questions concern the political potential of the EIS. As the effect of the real created by time-lapse technology locates itself in the optimistic promise of Internet community, what kind of collective relation is produced? My key interlocutors are Timothy Morton, who claims that ecological thinking effects a loss of authentic world, and Jonathan Crary, who argues that late capitalism robs us of shared time, thus precluding the possibility of organized resistance. I argue that, despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the “we” that Balog's project calls to action, the form of sociality produced by the technologies on which the EIS relies has its own political potential.
The Phenomenology of Animal Life
Authors: Lestel Dominique , Bussolini Jeffrey , Chrulew Matthew
Published: April 2016

This paper presents a bi-constructivist approach to the study of animal life, which is opposed to the realist-Cartesian paradigm in which most ethology operates. The method is elaborated through the examples of a knot-tying orangutan in a Paris zoo and chile-eating cats in a New York apartment. We show that, when grounded in the operational framework of the phenomenological approach, the interpretation of animal life acquires a much more robust character than is usually supposed.
Beyond Whole Earth: Planetary Mediation and the Anthropocene
Authors: Boes Tobias
Published: April 2016

This article examines the hermeneutic and poetic operations by which we as human beings turn our very planet into a signifier for our collective existence as a species, a process which I refer to as “planetary mediation.” I identify the so-called Whole Earth images first generated by the Apollo Space missions as the characteristic form of planetary mediation during the late twentieth century, and argue that our current emergence into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, calls for radically different representational strategies. Whole Earth images draw their strength from their iconographic and indexical qualities—in other words, their seeming ability to ground symbolic discourse in something that is undeniably and materially real. In the Anthropocene, however, physical nature itself has become a medium for the inscription of human messages, and effective planetary mediation can now take place only in virtual environments such as those of Google Earth and advanced climate modeling systems. I analyze the work of Soviet biologist Evgeni Shepelev as a starting point for this form of planetary mediation and discuss the multimedia installation The Place Where You Go to Listen by American composer John Luther Adams in order to show the challenges that contemporary environmental art will still have to overcome if it wants to illuminate our current planetary condition.
Science Fiction and the Risks of the Anthropocene: Anticipated Transformations in Dale Pendell's The Great Bay
Authors: von Mossner Alexa Weik
Published: April 2016

Covering the time span from 2021 to 16000 N.C., Dale Pendell's speculative novel The Great Bay chronicles the profound climatic, geological and ecological transformations that California undergoes during these fourteen millennia. Human life becomes unimaginably small on such a time scale, and Pendell responds to that representational challenge by compiling a wide variety of texts that zero in on individual humans at different points in the future rather than offering a continuous story or central character. In a way, that place is taken by the geographical region that is the focus of the narrative and gives the book its title. Timothy Morton has argued that because we live in the Anthropocene we can no longer understand history as exclusively human. Pendell's “Chronicle of the Collapse” suggests that the same is true for storytelling, offering readers the story of a nonhuman protagonist that changes slowly over time. The result is a highly fragmented narrative that is interesting for what it tries to achieve but at the same time remarkably unengaging. In its distant and distanced rendering of future ecological change and human anguish, The Great Bay is a grave reminder not only of the incalculable risks of the Anthropocene, but also of the basic tenets of realist storytelling.
“Not Promising a Landfall ...”: An Autotopographical Account of Loss of Place, Memory and Landscape
Authors: Jones Owain
Published: April 2016

This paper contributes to discussions about landscape and place and how they are practised in relation to time, displacement, memory and loss. I develop a multi-dimensional account of how landscape is generated in the moment by spatio-temporal topologies and topographies in which memory, movement and materiality play full parts. I consider absence, loss and displacement and how they operate within self-landscape practice, and how particular forms of materiality (in this case, large bridges) become charged with all sorts of emotions relating to personal history (how bridges can be psychogeographical “hotspots”). Displacement from, or loss of, home/land/place/nature—driven by one means or another (economic, conflict, environmental degradations)—can be a looming presence in everyday life. Resulting emotions and affective traces can suffuse through and cleave to materiality, and materiality patterned into landscape, in contingent, unexpected and unaccountable ways, which, as articulated through everyday affective life, are hard to represent in (academic) language. Questions are raised about the relationships between self, time, memory, materiality and place, using a non-representational, creative approach, based on image and textual collage.
Global Plants and Digital Letters: Epistemological Implications of Digitising the Directors' Correspondence at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Authors: Svensson Anna
Published: April 2016

Digitisation is presenting new possibilities and challenges for the use of collections in both the humanities and the sciences. However, digitisation is also another layer in a longer process of selections shaping the collection—something which must be analysed on a case-by-case basis. This paper considers the epistemological implications of the digitisation of the Directors' Correspondence (DC) collection (1841-1928) at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, made available through the Global Plants database. In order to avoid a polarised analysis of the end-products of archive and database, the selection process shaping this collection is traced from the writing of the letters and their reception into the DC at RBG, Kew, to the digitisation with corresponding metadata and the end-user searching the database. Particular attention is given the digitisation process and the knowledge produced by the project digitisers, as they combine close reading and database searches in writing the summaries of the letters for the metadata. This analysis of the DC engages with wider discussions about digitisation by emphasising the importance of taking a longer historical perspective, with particular attention to moments of selection, and highlighting the knowledge generated by those involved in the digitisation process. By doing so, the result is not a clear trajectory but a combination of losses and gains, disconnections and reconnections. Care is therefore needed to avoid replicating the invisible losses of extractive approaches to knowledge production, particularly in the context of collection-based biodiversity conservation.1