bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Invasibility of boreal wetland plant communities
Authors: Ström Lotta , Jansson Roland , Nilsson Christer 
Published: January 2014

AbstractQuestionHow does germination and establishment of non‐resident plant species differ among major types of wetland ecosystems in boreal forest landscapes?LocationA 250‐km2 large boreal forest landscape in northern Sweden.MethodsWe performed a germination and establishment experiment to test for differences between three major wetland types: riparian zones, open wetlands and forested wetlands. These wetland types differ ecologically, hydrologically and in their distribution in the landscape. Six species of vascular plant native to the region but absent or rare in one or more of the three wetland types were sown separately in plots with two different levels of disturbance (complete vegetation removal and control) and were monitored for 3 yr. For two species, seed‐sowing density was varied to test for effects of propagule pressure.ResultsAll six species were able to germinate and survive in all habitats and disturbance levels, suggesting that all three wetland types are invasible. There were positive correlations between germination or survival and species richness in resident vegetation for four out of six species, i.e. species‐rich sites were more invasible. The germination frequency did not vary with seed‐sowing density, indicating that density‐dependent effects were small. All species had higher survival in their resident habitat, while the effect of disturbance was small.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the low levels of plant invasion observed in boreal wetlands are better explained by low propagule pressure than high resistance to invasion. However, the habitat dependency of survival implies that population establishment is only expected in habitats to which the species are adapted. Nevertheless, levels of invasion might increase in the future, given that more species are being introduced as a result of increases in transport and trade.
Evaluating the effectiveness of domestic abuse prevention education: Are certain children more or less receptive to the messages conveyed?
Authors: Fox Claire L. , Corr Mary‐Louise , Gadd David , Sim Julius 
Published: January 2014

PurposeA number of school‐based domestic abuse prevention programmes have been developed in the United Kingdom, but evidence as to the effectiveness of such programmes is limited. The aim of the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of one such programme and to see whether the outcomes differ by gender and experiences of domestic abuse.MethodPupils aged 13–14 years, across seven schools, receiving a 6‐week education programme completed a questionnaire to measure their attitudes towards domestic violence at pre‐, post‐test, and 3‐month follow‐up, and also responded to questions about experiences of abuse (as victims, perpetrators, and witnesses) and help seeking. Children in another six schools not yet receiving the intervention responded to the same questions at pre‐ and post‐test. In total, 1,203 children took part in the research.ResultsBoys and girls who had received the intervention became less accepting of domestic violence and more likely to seek help from pre‐ to post‐test compared with those in the control group; outcomes did not vary by experiences of abuse. There was evidence that the change in attitudes for those in the intervention group was maintained at 3‐month follow‐up.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that such a programme shows great promise, with both boys and girls benefiting from the intervention, and those who have experienced abuse and those who have not (yet) experienced abuse showing a similar degree of attitude change.
Reproducibility patterns of multiple rapid swallows during high resolution esophageal manometry provide insights into esophageal pathophysiology
Authors: Price L. H. , Li Y. , Patel A. , Gyawali C. P. 
Published: January 2014

AbstractBackgroundMultiple rapid swallows (MRS) during esophageal high resolution manometry (HRM) assess esophageal neuromuscular integrity by evaluating postdeglutitive inhibition and rebound contraction, but most reports performed only a single MRS sequence. We assessed patterns of MRS reproducibility during clinical HRM in comparison to a normal cohort.MethodsConsecutive clinical HRM studies were included if two separate MRS sequences (four to six rapid swallows ≤4 s apart) were successfully performed. Chicago Classification diagnoses were identified; contraction wave abnormalities were additionally recorded. MRS‐induced inhibition (contraction ≤3 cm during inhibition phase) and rebound contraction was assessed, and findings compared to 18 controls (28.0 ± 0.7 year, 50.0% female). Reproducibility consisted of similar inhibition and contraction responses with both sequences; discordance was segregated into inhibition and contraction phases.Key ResultsMultiple rapid swallows were successfully performed in 89.3% patients and all controls; 225 subjects (56.2 ± 0.9 year, 62.7% female) met study inclusion criteria. Multiple rapid swallows were reproducible in 76.9% patients and 94.4% controls (inhibition phase: 88.0% vs 94.4%, contraction phase 86.7% vs 100%, respectively, p = ns). A gradient of reproducibility was noted, highest in well‐developed motor disorders (achalasia spectrum, hypermotility disorders, and aperistalsis, 91.7–100%, p = ns compared to controls); and lower in lesser motor disorders (contraction wave abnormalities, esophageal body hypomotility) or normal studies (62.2–70.8%, p < 0.0001 compared to well‐developed motor disorders). Inhibition phase was most discordant in contraction wave abnormalities, while contraction phase was most discordant when studies were designated normal.Conclusions & InferencesMultiple rapid swallows are highly reproducible, especially in well‐developed motor disorders, and complement the standard wet swallow manometry protocol.
Transplastomic Nicotiana benthamiana plants expressing multiple defence genes encoding protease inhibitors and chitinase display broad‐spectrum resistance against insects, pathogens and abiotic stresses
Authors: Chen Peng‐Jen , Senthilkumar Rajendran , Jane Wann‐Neng , He Yong , Tian Zhihong , Yeh Kai‐Wun 
Published: January 2014

SummaryPlastid engineering provides several advantages for the next generation of transgenic technology, including the convenient use of transgene stacking and the generation of high expression levels of foreign proteins. With the goal of generating transplastomic plants with multiresistance against both phytopathogens and insects, a construct containing a monocistronic patterned gene stack was transformed into Nicotiana benthamiana plastids harbouring sweet potato sporamin, taro cystatin and chitinase from Paecilomyces javanicus. Transplastomic lines were screened and characterized by Southern/Northern/Western blot analysis for the confirmation of transgene integration and respective expression level. Immunogold localization analyses confirmed the high level of accumulation proteins that were specifically expressed in leaf and root plastids. Subsequent functional bioassays confirmed that the gene stacks conferred a high level of resistance against both insects and phytopathogens. Specifically, larva of Spodoptera litura and Spodoptera exigua either died or exhibited growth retardation after ingesting transplastomic plant leaves. In addition, the inhibitory effects on both leaf spot diseases caused by Alternaria alternata and soft rot disease caused by Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum were markedly observed. Moreover, tolerance to abiotic stresses such as salt/osmotic stress was highly enhanced. The results confirmed that the simultaneous expression of sporamin, cystatin and chitinase conferred a broad spectrum of resistance. Conversely, the expression of single transgenes was not capable of conferring such resistance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate an efficacious stacked combination of plastid‐expressed defence genes which resulted in an engineered tolerance to various abiotic and biotic stresses.
Restoration Practices Have Positive Effects on Breeding Bird Species of Concern in the Chihuahuan Desert
Authors: Coffman John M. , Bestelmeyer Brandon T. , Kelly Jeffrey F. , Wright Timothy F. , Schooley Robert L. 
Published: January 2014

AbstractWoody plant encroachment into grasslands is a global concern. Efforts to restore grasslands often assume that removal of woody plants benefits biodiversity but assumptions are rarely tested. In the Chihuahuan Desert of the Southwestern United States, we tested whether abundances of grassland specialist bird species would be greater in plant communities resulting from treatment with herbicides to remove encroaching shrubs compared with untreated shrub‐dominated areas that represented pre‐treatment conditions. In 2010, we surveyed breeding birds and vegetation at 16 treated–untreated pairs. In 2011, we expanded the survey effort to 21 treated–untreated pairs, seven unpaired treatment areas, and five reference grassland areas. Vegetation in treatment areas had higher perennial grass foliar and basal cover and lower shrub foliar cover compared with untreated areas. Several regionally declining grassland specialists exhibited higher occurrence and relative abundance in treated areas. A shrubland specialist, however, was associated with untreated areas and may be negatively impacted by shrub removal. Bird community composition differed between treated and untreated areas in both years. Our results indicate that shrub removal can have positive effects on grassland specialist bird species, but that a mosaic of treated and untreated areas might be most beneficial for regional biodiversity.
Experimental Testing and Full and Homogenized Numerical Models of the Low Velocity and Dynamic Deformation of the Trapezoidal Aluminium Corrugated Core Sandwich
Authors: Kιlιçaslan C. , Odacι İ. K. , Taşdemirci A. , Güden M. 
Published: January 2014

ABSTRACTThe simulations of the low velocity and dynamic deformation of a multi‐layer 1050‐H14 Al trapezoidal zig‐zag corrugated core sandwich were investigated using the homogenized models (solid models) of a single core layer (without face sheets). In the first part of the study, the LS‐DYNA MAT‐26 material model parameters of a single core layer were developed through experimental and numerical compression tests on the single core layer. In the second part, the fidelities of the developed numerical models were checked by the split‐Hopkinson pressure bar direct impact, low velocity compression and indentation and projectile impact tests. The results indicated that the element size had a significant effect on the initial peak and post‐peak stresses of the homogenized models of the direct impact testing of the single‐layer corrugated sandwich. This was attributed to the lack of the inertial effects in the homogenized models, which resulted in reduced initial peak stresses as compared with the full model and experiment. However, the homogenized models based on the experimental stress–strain curve of the single core layer predicted the low velocity compression and indentation and projectile impact tests of the multi‐layer corrugated sandwich with an acceptable accuracy and reduced the computational time of the models significantly.
Alternative Probability Theories for Cognitive Psychology
Authors: Narens Louis 
Published: January 2014

AbstractVarious proposals for generalizing event spaces for probability functions have been put forth in the mathematical, scientific, and philosophic literatures. In cognitive psychology such generalizations are used for explaining puzzling results in decision theory and for modeling the influence of context effects. This commentary discusses proposals for generalizing probability theory to event spaces that are not necessarily boolean algebras. Two prominent examples are quantum probability theory, which is based on the set of closed subspaces of a Hilbert space, and topological probability theory, which is based on the set of open sets of a topology. Both have been applied to a variety of cognitive situations. This commentary focuses on how event space properties can influence probability concepts and impact cognitive modeling.
Learning Representations of Animated Motion Sequences—A Neural Model
Authors: Layher Georg , Giese Martin A. , Neumann Heiko 
Published: January 2014

AbstractThe detection and categorization of animate motions is a crucial task underlying social interaction and perceptual decision making. Neural representations of perceived animate objects are partially located in the primate cortical region STS, which is a region that receives convergent input from intermediate‐level form and motion representations. Populations of STS cells exist which are selectively responsive to specific animated motion sequences, such as walkers. It is still unclear how and to what extent form and motion information contribute to the generation of such representations and what kind of mechanisms are involved in the learning processes. The article develops a cortical model architecture for the unsupervised learning of animated motion sequence representations. We demonstrate how the model automatically selects significant motion patterns as well as meaningful static form prototypes characterized by a high degree of articulation. Such key poses are selectively reinforced during learning through a cross talk between the motion and form processing streams. Furthermore, we show how sequence‐selective representations are learned in STS by fusing static form and motion input from the segregated bottom‐up driving input streams. Cells in STS, in turn, feed their activities recurrently to their input sites along top‐down signal pathways. We show how such learned feedback connections enable predictions about future input as anticipation generated by sequence‐selective STS cells. Network simulations demonstrate the computational capacity of the proposed model by reproducing several experimental findings from neurosciences and by accounting for recent behavioral data.
Modeling the Emergence of Lexicons in Homesign Systems
Authors: Richie Russell , Yang Charles , Coppola Marie 
Published: January 2014

AbstractIt is largely acknowledged that natural languages emerge not just from human brains but also from rich communities of interacting human brains (Senghas, 2005). Yet the precise role of such communities and such interaction in the emergence of core properties of language has largely gone uninvestigated in naturally emerging systems, leaving the few existing computational investigations of this issue at an artificial setting. Here, we take a step toward investigating the precise role of community structure in the emergence of linguistic conventions with both naturalistic empirical data and computational modeling. We first show conventionalization of lexicons in two different classes of naturally emerging signed systems: (a) protolinguistic “homesigns” invented by linguistically isolated Deaf individuals, and (b) a natural sign language emerging in a recently formed rich Deaf community. We find that the latter conventionalized faster than the former. Second, we model conventionalization as a population of interacting individuals who adjust their probability of sign use in response to other individuals' actual sign use, following an independently motivated model of language learning (Yang, 2002, 2004). Simulations suggest that a richer social network, like that of natural (signed) languages, conventionalizes faster than a sparser social network, like that of homesign systems. We discuss our behavioral and computational results in light of other work on language emergence, and other work of behavior on complex networks.
Maximizing Students' Retention via Spaced Review: Practical Guidance From Computational Models of Memory
Authors: Khajah Mohammad M. , Lindsey Robert V. , Mozer Michael C. 
Published: January 2014

AbstractDuring each school semester, students face an onslaught of material to be learned. Students work hard to achieve initial mastery of the material, but when they move on, the newly learned facts, concepts, and skills degrade in memory. Although both students and educators appreciate that review can help stabilize learning, time constraints result in a trade‐off between acquiring new knowledge and preserving old knowledge. To use time efficiently, when should review take place? Experimental studies have shown benefits to long‐term retention with spaced study, but little practical advice is available to students and educators about the optimal spacing of study. The dearth of advice is due to the challenge of conducting experimental studies of learning in educational settings, especially where material is introduced in blocks over the time frame of a semester. In this study, we turn to two established models of memory—ACT‐R andMCM—to conduct simulation studies exploring the impact of study schedule on long‐term retention. Based on the premise of a fixed time each week to review, converging evidence from the two models suggests that an optimal review schedule obtains significant benefits over haphazard (suboptimal) review schedules. Furthermore, we identify two scheduling heuristics that obtain near optimal review performance: (a) review the material fromμ‐weeks back, and (b) review material whose predicted memory strength is closest to a particular threshold. The former has implications for classroom instruction and the latter for the design of digital tutors.
Toward a Physical Theory of Quantum Cognition
Authors: Takahashi Taiki 
Published: January 2014

AbstractRecently, mathematical models based on quantum formalism have been developed in cognitive science. The target articles in this special issue of Topics in Cognitive Science clearly illustrate how quantum theoretical formalism can account for various aspects of human judgment and decision making in a quantitatively and mathematically rigorous manner. In this commentary, we show how future studies in quantum cognition and decision making should be developed to establish theoretical foundations based on physical theory, by introducing Taketani's three‐stage theory of the development of science. Also, implications for neuroeconomics (another rapidly evolving approach to human judgment and decision making) are discussed.
Miniaturized and High-Throughput Assays for Analysis of T-Cell Immunity Specific for Opportunistic Pathogens and HIV
Authors: Li Pira Giuseppina , Ivaldi Federico , Starc Nadia , Landi Fabiola , Locatelli Franco , Rutella Sergio , Tripodi Gino , Manca Fabrizio 
Published: January 2014

ABSTRACTMonitoring of antigen-specific T-cell responses is valuable in numerous conditions that include infectious diseases, vaccinations, and opportunistic infections associated with acquired or congenital immune defects. A variety of assays that make use of peripheral lymphocytes to test activation markers, T-cell receptor expression, or functional responses are currently available. The last group of assays calls for large numbers of functional lymphocytes. The number of cells increases with the number of antigens to be tested. Consequently, cells may be the limiting factor, particularly in lymphopenic subjects and in children, the groups that more often require immune monitoring. We have developed immunochemical assays that measure secreted cytokines in the same wells in which peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) are cultured. This procedure lent itself to miniaturization and automation. Lymphoproliferation and the enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) assay have been adapted to a miniaturized format. Here we provide examples of immune profiles and describe a comparison between miniaturized assays based on cytokine secretion or proliferation. We also demonstrate that these assays are convenient for use in testing antigen specificity in established T-cell lines, in addition to analysis of PBMC. In summary, the applicabilities of miniaturization to save cells and reagents and of automation to save time and increase accuracy were demonstrated in this study using different methodological approaches valuable in the clinical immunology laboratory.
Correlations between Peripheral Blood Coxiella burnetii DNA Load, Interleukin-6 Levels, and C-Reactive Protein Levels in Patients with Acute Q Fever
Authors: Kremers M. N. T. , Janssen R. , Wielders C. C. H. , Kampschreur L. M. , Schneeberger P. M. , Netten P. M. , de Klerk A. , Hodemaekers H. M. , Hermans M. H. A. , Notermans D. W. , Wever P. C. 
Published: January 2014

ABSTRACT

From 2007 to 2010, the Netherlands experienced the largest reported Q fever outbreak, with >4,000 notified cases. We showed previously that C-reactive protein is the only traditional infection marker reflecting disease activity in acute Q fever. Interleukin-6 is the principal inducer of C-reactive protein. We questioned whether increased C-reactive protein levels in acute Q fever patients coincide with increased interleukin-6 levels and if these levels correlate with the
Coxiella burnetii
DNA load in serum. In addition, we studied their correlation with disease severity, expressed by hospital admission and the development of fatigue. Interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels were analyzed in sera from 102 patients diagnosed with seronegative PCR-positive acute Q fever. Significant but weak negative correlations were observed between bacterial DNA loads expressed as cycle threshold values and interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels, while a significant moderate-strong positive correlation was present between interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels. Furthermore, significantly higher interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels were observed in hospitalized acute Q fever patients in comparison to those in nonhospitalized patients, while bacterial DNA loads were the same in the two groups. No marker was prognostic for the development of fatigue. In conclusion, the correlation between interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels in acute Q fever patients points to an immune activation pathway in which interleukin-6 induces the production of C-reactive protein. Significant differences in interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels between hospitalized and nonhospitalized patients despite identical bacterial DNA loads suggest an important role for host factors in disease presentation. Higher interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels seem predictive of more severe disease.