bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Modeling of average surface energy estimator using computational intelligence technique
Authors: Owolabi Taoreed O , Akande Kabiru O , Sunday Olatunji O 
Published: August 2015

Purpose
– The surface energy per unit area of material is known to be proportional to the thermal energy at the melting point of the material. The purpose of this paper is to employ the values of the melting points of metals to develop a model that estimates the average surface energies of metals. Average surface energy estimator (ASEE) was developed with the aid of computational intelligence technique on the platform of support vector regression (SVR) using the values of the melting point of the materials as the descriptor.

Design/methodology/approach
– The development of ASEE which involves 12 data set was conducted by training and testing SVR model using test-set-cross-validation technique. The developed model (ASEE) was used to estimate average surface energies of 3d, 4d, 5d and other selected metals in the periodic table. The average surface energies obtained from ASEE are in good agreement with the experimental values and with the values from other theoretical models.

Findings
– The accuracy of this developed model coupled with its adoption of descriptor that can be easily obtained makes it a viable alternative in circumventing the difficulty experienced in experimental determination of average surface energies of materials.

Originality/value
– Modeling of ASEE has never been reported in the literature. Meanwhile, the use of ASEE will help circumvent the difficulties involved in the experimental determination of average surface energies of materials.
Functional characterizations of Ellenberg indicator values – a review on ecophysiological determinants
Authors: Bartelheimer Maik , Poschlod Peter 
Published: August 2015

Summary

Ellenberg indicator values (EIVs) can be used as a numerical system to classify species’ habitat niches and their peak occurrence along gradients. By finding correlations of EIVs with morphological or ecophysiological properties, it is possible to identify determinants of species distributions with respect to environmental factors.

We surveyed existing literature containing species comparisons from controlled experiments and combined them with EIVs.

The picture emerging is that multiple determinants can be identified for nutrient numbers (N), soil reaction numbers (R) and also soil moisture numbers (M), while only few can be found for light numbers (L) and especially for continentality (C) and temperature numbers (T). Functional characterizations of the different EIV can thus be deduced which help to understand the mechanisms and processes driving the ecological niche of a plant.

The described approach is a powerful tool to analyse the ecological significance of different plant properties. Species screenings specifically designed to allow for correlations with EIV have large potential for high explanatory power.
Conserved stomatal behaviour under elevated CO2 and varying water availability in a mature woodland
Authors: Gimeno Teresa E. , Crous Kristine Y. , Cooke Julia , O'Grady Anthony P. , Ósvaldsson Anna , Medlyn Belinda E. , Ellsworth David S. 
Published: August 2015

Summary

Rising levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration (Ca) and simultaneous climate change profoundly affect plant physiological performance while challenging our ability to estimate vegetation–atmosphere fluxes. To predict rates of water and carbon exchange between vegetation and the atmosphere, we require a formulation for stomatal conductance (gs) that captures the multidimensional response of stomata to changing environmental conditions. The unified stomatal optimization (USO) theory provides a formulation for gs with the ability to predict the response of gs to novel environmental conditions such as elevated Ca (eCa), warmer temperatures and/or changing water availability.

We tested for the effect of eCa and seasonally varying climate on stomatal behaviour, as defined by the USO theory, during the first year of free‐air CO2 enrichment in a native eucalypt woodland (the EucFACE experiment). We hypothesized that under eCa, gs would decrease and photosynthesis (Anet) would increase, but fundamental stomatal behaviour described in the USO model would remain unchanged. We also predicted that the USO slope parameter g1 would increase with temperature and water availability. Over 20 months, we performed quarterly gas exchange campaigns encompassing a wide range of temperatures and water availabilities. We measured gs, Anet and leaf water potential (Ψ) at mid‐morning, midday and pre‐dawn (Ψ only) under ambient and eCa and prevailing climatic conditions, at the tree tops (20 m height).

We found that eCa induced a 20% reduction in stomatal conductance under non‐limiting water availability, enhanced mid‐morning Anet by 24% in three out of five measurement campaigns and had no significant effect on Ψ. The parameter g1 was conserved under eCa, weakly increased with temperature and did not respond to increasing water availability.

Our results suggest that under eCa and variable rainfall, mature eucalypt trees exhibit a conservative water‐use strategy, but this strategy may be modified by growth temperature. We show that the USO theory successfully predicts coupling of carbon uptake and water loss in future atmospheric conditions in a native woodland and thus could be incorporated into ecosystem‐scale and global vegetation models.
Cool tadpoles from Arctic environments waste fewer nutrients – high gross growth efficiencies lead to low consumer‐mediated nutrient recycling in the North
Authors: Liess Antonia , Guo Junwen , Lind Martin I. , Rowe Owen 
Published: August 2015

Summary

Endothermic organisms can adapt to short growing seasons, low temperatures and nutrient limitation by developing high growth rates and high gross growth efficiencies (GGEs). Animals with high GGEs are better at assimilating limiting nutrients and thus should recycle (or lose) fewer nutrients. Longer guts in relation to body mass may facilitate higher GGE under resource limitation.

Within the context of ecological stoichiometry theory, this study combines ecology with evolution by relating latitudinal life‐history adaptations in GGE, mediated by gut length, to its ecosystem consequences, such as consumer‐mediated nutrient recycling.

In common garden experiments, we raised Rana temporaria tadpoles from two regions (Arctic/Boreal) under two temperature regimes (18/23 °C) crossed with two food quality treatments (high/low‐nitrogen content). We measured tadpole GGEs, total nutrient loss (excretion + egestion) rates and gut length during ontogeny.

In order to maintain their elemental balance, tadpoles fed low‐nitrogen (N) food had lower N excretion rates and higher total phosphorous (P) loss rates than tadpoles fed high‐quality food. In accordance with expectations, Arctic tadpoles had higher GGEs and lower N loss rates than their low‐latitude conspecifics, especially when fed low‐N food, but only in ambient temperature treatments. Arctic tadpoles also had relatively longer guts than Boreal tadpoles during early development.

That temperature and food quality interacted with tadpole region of origin in affecting tadpole GGEs, nutrient loss rates and relative gut length, suggests evolved adaptation to temperature and resource differences. With future climate change, mean annual temperatures will increase. Additionally, species and genotypes will migrate north. This will change the functioning of Boreal and Arctic ecosystems by affecting consumer‐mediated nutrient recycling and thus affect nutrient dynamics in general. Our study shows that evolved latitudinal adaption can change key ecosystem functions.
Gaining control over breast cancer risk: Transforming vulnerability, uncertainty, and the future through clinical trial participation – a qualitative study
Authors: Holmberg Christine , Whitehouse Katie , Daly Mary , McCaskill‐Stevens Worta 
Published: August 2015

AbstractConcepts of disease risk and its management are central to processes of medicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation. Through a narrative perspective, this paper aims to understand how such macro‐level developments may (or may not) be experienced individually, and how an algorithm that is used for recruitment into a clinical trial may structure individual notions of being ‘at risk’ and ‘in need of treatment’. We interviewed 31 women participating in the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), a chemoprevention trial conducted in the US between 1999 and 2006. Interviews were thematically analysed. Women in the study had experienced the threat of breast cancer and felt vulnerable to developing the disease prior to STAR participation. The diagnosis of ‘being at risk’ for cancer through an algorithm that determined risk‐eligibility for STAR, opened up the possibility for the women to heal. The trial became a means to recognise and collectivise the women's experiences of vulnerability. Through medication intake, being cared for by study coordinators, and the sense of community with other STAR participants, trial participation worked to transform women's lives. Such transformative experiences may nevertheless have been temporary, enduring only as long as the close links to the medical institution through trial participation lasted.
Meeting pragmatism halfway: making a pragmatic clinical trial protocol
Authors: Rushforth Alexander 
Published: August 2015

AbstractPragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) are today an increasingly prominent means of measuring the ‘effectiveness’ of healthcare interventions in ‘real world’ clinical settings, in order to produce evidence on which to base regulatory and clinical decision‐making. Although several sociological studies have shown persuasively how PCTs are co‐constructed within particular healthcare systems in which they are based, they have tended to focus on relatively later stages in careers of trials. The paper contributes to literature by considering how the ‘real world’ of the UK National Health Service (NHS) is incorporated into the design of a research protocol. Drawing on a meeting held just prior to patient recruitment for a PCT in maternal health, the paper analyses a trial collective's efforts to purify the messy domain of NHS clinical care into the orderly confines of the protocol (Law 2004), which meant satisfying demands for both scientific and social robustness (c.f. Nowotny et al. 2001). The findings show how efforts to inscribe robustness into the PCT protocol were themselves mediated through epistemic and regulatory conventions surrounding protocols as devices in healthcare research. Finally it is argued that meetings constitute an important epistemic instrument through which to settle various emerging tensions in PCT protocol design.
Educational mismatch and mortality among native‐born workers in Sweden. A 19‐year longitudinal study of 2.5 million over‐educated, matched and under‐educated individuals, 1990–2008
Authors: Garcy Anthony M. 
Published: August 2015

AbstractThis study tests the hypothesis that a disjuncture between an individual's attained level of education and that held by average workers in the individual's occupation leads to higher mortality among those with a prolonged mismatched status. Swedish register data are used in a 19‐year longitudinal mortality follow‐up study of all causes and specific causes of mortality. Participants were all men and women born between 1926 and 1985 who were alive on 1 September 1990, who had concurrent information on their attained level of education and the specific occupation or industry they were employed in during this period for at least a consecutive year. An objective measure of educational and occupational mismatch was constructed from these data. Those with a stable, over‐educated matched, or under‐educated employment status are included in the final analysis (N = 2,482,696). Independent of social, family, employers’ characteristics and prior health problems, the findings from a multivariate, stratified Cox regression analysis suggest there is excessive mortality among the over‐educated, and a protective effect of under‐education among native‐born Swedish men and women.
Planning as Dramaturgy: Agonistic Approaches to Spatial Enactment
Authors: Rannila Päivi , Loivaranta Tikli 
Published: August 2015

AbstractIn urban planning, inclusion is not necessarily achieved by increasing opportunities for deliberation between planners and residents, as power and exclusion reside in the process of deliberation, especially in the rigid spaces of formal planning hearings. Planners' professional jargon may remain inaccessible to residents, who grasp their living environment in terms of the flow of sensory and social interactions. So the framework of instrumental rationality may exclude softer, yet meaningful, local stories. What is needed in urban planning is a sensitivity for the plurality of these stories. In this article we propose that applied drama methods could provide a novel model for deliberative planning, in order to surpass the silo thinking of instrumental rationality, and ingrained, taken‐for‐granted concepts and identities, by artistic and affective means of argumentation. Furthermore, it seems that residents gain access to the embodied understanding of different trajectories of meaning making by playing the roles of other residents. Drama may provide a channel of expression that helps people move beyond the antagonistic posturing between stakeholders, as well as an empowering way to express the plurality of stories in neighbourhood spaces.
Marbling Analysis for Evaluating Meat Quality: Methods and Techniques
Authors: Cheng Weiwei , Cheng Jun‐Hu , Sun Da‐Wen , Pu Hongbin 
Published: August 2015

AbstractMarbling is one of the most important traits determining the quality of meat, and the richness of marbling is often considered by consumers as the primary factor when buying meat in view of its contribution to sensory characteristics of meat. In the market, there has been a constant demand for meat products with an assured degree of marbling. Conventionally, marbling of meat is assessed by visual appraisal or chemical analysis, which has the disadvantages of being subjective and time‐consuming. In order to improve the detection accuracy and production efficiency, a variety of modern instrumental techniques, including spectroscopic techniques, imaging techniques, and hyperspectral imaging, have been developed for marbling analysis. This paper gives a comprehensive overview on the recent advances in marbling analysis. What's more, the advantages, limitations and some perspectives on the future trends of these techniques are also presented.
Forensic Potential of MMPs and CC Chemokines for Wound Age Determination
Authors: Wang Yenan , Yamamoto Yuki , Kuninaka Yumi , Kondo Toshikazu , Furukawa Fukumi 
Published: August 2015

AbstractIn this study, we investigated time‐dependent expression of matrix metalloproteases (MMP)‐2, MMP‐9, chemokine CC motif ligand (CCL)‐2, CCL‐3, CCL‐5, IL‐1β, IL‐6, and TNF‐α mRNA at the skin injury site and sought their forensic potentials during the skin wound repair process. The tested wound ages in 42 mouse skin wounds were distributed at 0d, 1d, 3d, 5d, 7d, 10d, and 14d, respectively and then followed by real‐time polymerase chain reaction. Ultimately, MMP‐2 played an important role in the inflammation phase. On the contrary, MMP‐9 became involved at a later phase during wound healing. Meanwhile, CCL‐2 and CCL‐3 were active throughout almost all of the process. However, CCL‐5 mRNA had no significance. Collectively, an MMP‐9/MMP‐2 ratio of over 0.84 indicated that skin wound healing age was strongly 5 days or less. So elevated gene expressions of cytokines and chemokines in different phases of wound ages implied that combined exploration could make wound age determination more accurate and objective.
Undetermined Manner of Death: An Autopsy Series
Authors: Advenier Anne‐Sophie , Guillard Nadege , Alvarez Jean‐Claude , Martrille Laurent , Lorin de la Grandmaison Geoffroy 
Published: August 2015

AbstractA manner of death may be ruled undetermined by the forensic pathologist when there is insufficient information about the circumstances surrounding the death to make a ruling. The aim of our study was to retrospectively analyze a series of autopsy cases that were classified as undetermined manner of death after complete investigations. In all, 48 cases were examined. In 23 cases (48%), the cause of death was determined. The most frequent cause of death was toxic death (n = 11). More than one manner of death was deemed conceivable for most cases (n = 39). The most frequent and the most probable manner of death was accident (n = 37). Homicide was not excluded in about 23% of the cases. Our study showed that the manner of death may remain undetermined despite an established cause of death, and even when two or more conceivable causes of death are considered. Our study pointed out that undetermined manner of death covers a wide range of situations and that homicide may be underestimated.
Improving intraspecific allele networks inferred by maximum parsimony
Authors: Branders Vincent , Mardulyn Patrick 
Published: August 2015

Summary

Allele (or haplotype) networks are often used in phylogeographic studies to display genetic variation within a species or a group of closely related species. A global maximum parsimony approach to infer allele networks, arguably the method of choice to display genetic variation at the intraspecific level, consists in inferring all most parsimonious trees from a DNA sequence alignment and combining the corresponding phylograms into a single graph. However, it has been suggested that, while classic phylogenetic programs generate a single phylogram per most parsimonious tree, deriving all possible phylograms from them would allow identifying additional most parsimonious paths among alleles, thereby improving this network inference method.

We test this prediction by analysing both simulated and empirical DNA sequence alignments. For this purpose, a computer program, CPN, was developed to implement the entire procedure, starting with a set of most parsimonious trees and combining all derived phylograms into a network.

We show that including all possible most parsimonious phylograms indeed often results in finding additional most parsimonious paths in the network graph, thereby improving the search for a global maximum parsimony solution.

We highly recommend the use of this approach in future phylogeographic studies, to ensure that all most parsimonious paths are included in the allele network, instead of an arbitrarily selected subset of those.
Assessing the robustness of quantitative fatty acid signature analysis to assumption violations
Authors: Bromaghin Jeffrey F. , Budge Suzanne M. , Thiemann Gregory W. , Rode Karyn D. 
Published: August 2015

Summary

Knowledge of animal diets can provide important insights into life history and ecology, relationships among species in a community and potential response to ecosystem change or perturbation. Quantitative fatty acid signature analysis (QFASA) is a method of estimating diets from data on the composition, or signature, of fatty acids stored in adipose tissue. Given data on signatures of potential prey, a predator diet is estimated by minimizing the distance between its signature and a mixture of prey signatures. Calibration coefficients, constants derived from feeding trials, are used to account for differential metabolism of individual fatty acids. QFASA has been widely applied since its introduction and several variants of the original estimator have appeared in the literature. However, work to compare the statistical properties of QFASA estimators has been limited.

One important characteristic of an estimator is its robustness to violations of model assumptions. The primary assumptions of QFASA are that prey signature data contain representatives of all prey types consumed and the calibration coefficients are known without error. We investigated the robustness of two QFASA estimators to a range of violations of these assumptions using computer simulation and recorded the resulting bias in diet estimates.

We found that the Aitchison distance measure was most robust to errors in the calibration coefficients. Conversely, the Kullback–Leibler distance measure was most robust to the consumption of prey without representation in the prey signature data.

In most QFASA applications, investigators will generally have some knowledge of the prey available to predators and be able to assess the completeness of prey signature data and sample additional prey as necessary. Conversely, because calibration coefficients are derived from feeding trials with captive animals and their values may be sensitive to consumer physiology and nutritional status, their applicability to free‐ranging animals is difficult to establish. We therefore recommend that investigators first make any improvements to the prey signature data that seem warranted and then base estimation on the Aitchison distance measure, as it appears to minimize risk from violations of the assumption that is most difficult to verify.
Technical efficiency of Kansas arable crop farms: a local maximum likelihood approach
Authors: Guesmi Bouali , Serra Teresa , Featherstone Allen 
Published: August 2015

AbstractThis study uses local maximum likelihood (LML) methods recently proposed by Kumbhakar et al. (2007) to assess the technical efficiency of arable crop Kansas farms. LML techniques overcome the most relevant limitations associated to mainstream parametric stochastic and nonparametric frontier models. LML allows deriving farm‐level frontier parameter estimates. The relevance of using localized estimates is evidenced by the observed heterogeneity in production technologies. Technical efficiency scores derived from the LML approach [0.905] are higher than those of the DEA model under CRS [0.808] and SFA [0.804] and close to DEA‐VRS [0.917] ratings. Deriving reliable information about farm efficiency performance is relevant to identify inefficient farms and define adequate policy and management strategies. The use of refined methods has thus important implications.
Changes in the management of liver trauma leading to reduced mortality: 15‐year experience in a major trauma centre
Authors: Suen Kary , Skandarajah Anita R. , Knowles Brett , Judson Rodney , Thomson Benjamin N. 
Published: August 2015

AbstractBackgroundWorldwide, the evolution of management of liver injury has resulted in improved outcomes. The aim of this study was to examine the trend in the management and outcomes of patients with liver injury. Primary outcomes were defined as mortality and hospital length of stay. The secondary aim was to identify independent predictors of mortality.MethodsThis study utilized hospital trauma registry data of all trauma patients with liver injuries admitted from 1999 to 2013. Patients in this 15‐year period were divided into three periods of 5 years each and compared in terms of demographics, management and outcomes.ResultsA total of 725 patients with hepatic trauma were included. Patient demographics were similar, except for an increase in patient transfers from rural locations. Non‐operative management increased significantly. There was a significant increase in the use of damage control surgery with perihepatic packing in high‐grade liver injuries managed operatively. Hepatic angioembolization commenced midway through the study period. The overall mortality decreased by approximately threefold (P < 0.001) and mortality within 24 h of arrival to hospital by approximately fivefold (P < 0.001). Controlling for independent predictive factors of mortality, the mortality within 24 h reduced from 18.8% in period 1 to 3.6% in period 3 (P = 0.001).ConclusionsAt this institution, an integrated trauma service has led to an evolution in the management of hepatic trauma, favouring non‐operative management, damage control surgery and the use of hepatic angioembolization. We experienced a significantly improved mortality within 24 h of arrival to hospital in patients with liver trauma.