bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum
Authors: Chave Jerome , Coomes David , Jansen Steven , Lewis Simon L. , Swenson Nathan G. , Zanne Amy E. 
Published: February 2009

AbstractWood performs several essential functions in plants, including mechanically supporting aboveground tissue, storing water and other resources, and transporting sap. Woody tissues are likely to face physiological, structural and defensive trade‐offs. How a plant optimizes among these competing functions can have major ecological implications, which have been under‐appreciated by ecologists compared to the focus they have given to leaf function. To draw together our current understanding of wood function, we identify and collate data on the major wood functional traits, including the largest wood density database to date (8412 taxa), mechanical strength measures and anatomical features, as well as clade‐specific features such as secondary chemistry. We then show how wood traits are related to one another, highlighting functional trade‐offs, and to ecological and demographic plant features (growth form, growth rate, latitude, ecological setting). We suggest that, similar to the manifold that tree species leaf traits cluster around the ‘leaf economics spectrum’, a similar ‘wood economics spectrum’ may be defined. We then discuss the biogeography, evolution and biogeochemistry of the spectrum, and conclude by pointing out the major gaps in our current knowledge of wood functional traits.
Delaying conservation actions for improved knowledge: how long should we wait?
Authors: Grantham Hedley S. , Wilson Kerrie A. , Moilanen Atte , Rebelo Tony , Possingham Hugh P. 
Published: February 2009

AbstractDecisions about where conservation actions are implemented are based on incomplete knowledge about biodiversity. The Protea Atlas is a comprehensive database, containing information collated over a decade. Using this data set in a series of retrospective simulations, we compared the outcome from different scenarios of information gain, and habitat protection and loss, over a 20‐year period. We assumed that there was no information on proteas at the beginning of the simulation but knowledge improved each year. Our aim was to find out how much time we should spend collecting data before protecting habitat when there is ongoing loss of habitat. We found that, in this case, surveying for more than 2 years rarely increased the effectiveness of conservation decisions in terms of representation of proteas in protected areas and retention within the landscape. If the delay is too long, it can sometimes be more effective just using a readily available habitat map. These results reveal the opportunity costs of delaying conservation action to improve knowledge.
Bacteria rather than Archaea dominate microbial ammonia oxidation in an agricultural soil
Authors: Jia Zhongjun , Conrad Ralf 
Published: February 2009

SummaryAgricultural ecosystems annually receive approximately 25% of the global nitrogen input, much of which is oxidized at least once by ammonia‐oxidizing prokaryotes to complete the nitrogen cycle. Recent discoveries have expanded the known ammonia‐oxidizing prokaryotes from the domain Bacteria to Archaea. However, in the complex soil environment it remains unclear whether ammonia oxidation is exclusively or predominantly linked to Archaea as implied by their exceptionally high abundance. Here we show that Bacteria rather than Archaea functionally dominate ammonia oxidation in an agricultural soil, despite the fact that archaeal versus bacterial amoA genes are numerically more dominant. In soil microcosms, in which ammonia oxidation was stimulated by ammonium and inhibited by acetylene, activity change was paralleled by abundance change of bacterial but not of archaeal amoA gene copy numbers. Molecular fingerprinting of amoA genes also coupled ammonia oxidation activity with bacterial but not archaeal amoA gene patterns. DNA‐stable isotope probing demonstrated CO2 assimilation by Bacteria rather than Archaea. Our results indicate that Archaea were not important for ammonia oxidation in the agricultural soil tested.
PROMAXX® inhaled insulin: safe and efficacious administration with a commercially available dry powder inhaler
Authors: Heise T. , Brugger A. , Cook C. , Eckers U. , Hutchcraft A. , Nosek L. , Rave K. , Troeger J. , Valaitis P. , White S. , Heinemann L. 
Published: February 2009

Objectives:  We investigated the pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) properties of recombinant human insulin inhalation powder (RHIIP), manufactured with PROMAXX® technology, which allows formation of uniform protein microspheres.Methods:  Thirty healthy male subjects [age 30 ± 1 years (mean ± s.e.), body mass index 24.2 ± 0.3 kg/m2] in a randomized crossover study received 10 IU subcutaneous regular human insulin (SCIns) and 6.5 mg of RHIIP [187 IU, Cyclohaler™ dry powder inhaler (DPI)] under euglycaemic glucose clamp conditions. Subjects were trained to inhale RHIIP with a flow rate of 90 ± 30 l/min prior to dosing.Results:  Inhalation of RHIIP was well tolerated with no episode of cough or shortness of breath. RHIIP showed a faster onset of action than SCIns [time to reach 10% of total area under the glucose infusion rate (GIR) curves 73 ± 2 vs. 95 ± 3 min, time to maximal metabolic effect (TmaxGIR) 173 ± 13 vs. 218 ± 9 min, both p < 0.0001]. Duration of action (371 ± 11 vs. 366 ± 7 min) and total metabolic effect (AUCGIR0–10 h 2734 ± 274 vs. 2482 ± 155 mg/kg) were comparable. PK results were in accordance with the PD findings. Relative bioavailability (BA) of RHIIP was 12 ± 2%, and relative biopotency (BP) was 6 ± 1%.Conclusions:  PROMAXX technology allowed for safe and efficacious administration of RHIIP to the deep lung with an off‐the‐shelf DPI. RHIIP showed a fast onset of action and BA/BP comparable to that reported for other inhaled insulin formulations using specifically designed inhalers. Improvements in the insulin delivery technique might allow to optimize drug application in all cases with even higher BA/BP with RHIIP.
Combinative Effects of Innovation Types and Organizational Performance: A Longitudinal Study of Service Organizations
Authors: Damanpour Fariborz , Walker Richard M. , Avellaneda Claudia N. 
Published: February 2009

abstractInnovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes, determinants, and effects. This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service, technological process, and administrative process) in service organizations. Its main thesis is that the impact of innovation on organizational performance depends on compositions of innovation types over time. We examine this proposition by analysing innovative activity in a panel of 428 public service organizations in the UK over four years. Our findings suggest that focus on adopting a specific type of innovation every year is detrimental, consistency in adopting the same composition of innovation types over the years has no effect, and divergence from the industry norm in adopting innovation types could possibly be beneficial to organizational performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and research on innovation types.
Demand‐ and Supply‐Side Agglomerations: Distinguishing between Fundamentally Different Manifestations of Geographic Concentration
Authors: McCann Brian T. , Folta Timothy B. 
Published: February 2009

abstract Agglomeration research investigates the benefits that firms receive from locating in close geographic proximity. Despite a substantial surge in interest in this topic over the past 20 years, a lack of distinction among unique manifestations of spatial concentrations of similar firms threatens continuing progress in this stream of research. We argue that agglomerations of related firms that draw benefits from the supply‐related externalities of increased access to specialized labour, specialized inputs, and knowledge spillovers are fundamentally different from those that draw benefits from heightened demand realized through reduction in consumer search costs. Extending agglomeration theory, we explicate the differences between these distinct phenomena, discuss how the nature of key theoretical relationships varies across these agglomeration types, and demonstrate significant implications for research. We discuss how the differences affect a host of theoretical relationships and empirical research decisions.
The Performance Effects of Business Groups in Russia
Authors: Estrin Saul , Poukliakova Svetlana , Shapiro Daniel 
Published: February 2009

abstract This study analyses the impact of business group affiliation on firm performance during a time when business groups are newly formed, when the economic and institutional environment is changing, and when group survival is uncertain. Based primarily on a transaction cost approach, we develop two hypotheses, concerning profitability and risk sharing (redistribution) respectively. The positive profitability hypothesis proposes that company affiliation with a business group directly and positively affects the profitability of each affiliate. A positive direct effect emerges when each affiliate benefits from access to group resources. The redistribution hypothesis considers the simultaneous possibility that inter‐affiliate transfers of resources through internal markets are designed to redistribute profits among group members. We argue that variance‐reducing redistribution from strong to weak group members is linked to group survival in times of institutional change. Our empirical approach focuses on testing these two linked hypotheses (and their alternatives) using a relatively large, contemporary and time varying database of Russian firms. We also develop a framework that distinguishes among the four possible empirical outcomes associated with the hypotheses. Our results provide unambiguous support for the case where the impact of group membership on profitability is positive and redistribution is variance‐reducing. We term this outcome Business Group Robustness, and contrast it with other possible empirical outcomes.
Spatial Relations between Classes as Integrity Constraints
Authors: Tarquini Francesco , Clementini Eliseo 
Published: February 2009

AbstractThe quality and integrity of spatial data is very important to support interoperability among different systems. To reach this aim integrity rules defined by the application play an important role (for example, constraints between object classes). In this article, we propose a methodology to define integrity constraints using user level spatial relations between classes of individuals. We will also provide mapping rules from user level relations to geometric level operators to allow the computation of relations. As a case study, we will define the constraints for the class of rivers and some of its specializations.
Semantic Execution Meets Geospatial Web Services: A Pilot Application
Authors: Zaharia Raluca , Vasiliu Laurentiu , Hoffman Joerg , Klien Eva 
Published: February 2009

AbstractGeospatial web services can be enhanced with semantic web service techniques in order to solve the existing interoperability issues in the geospatial domain. Therefore a large number of services can be composed to provide meaningful results to complex geospatial queries, but as the complexity grows, the users face serious performance problems. On top of existing geospatial web services we adopt the WSMO/L/X framework which provides a model to define machine and human‐understandable semantic descriptions, full support for mediation and a simple language to choreograph the execution of a composition of several geospatial web services. Our research focus is on the semantic execution and its performance inside the WSMX platform. Our core contributions are: (1) providing a solution for automated semantic execution of geospatial queries; and (2) providing a combination of techniques and improvements to the efficiency aspect.
Trajectory Ontologies and Queries
Authors: Yan Zhixian , Macedo Jose , Parent Christine , Spaccapietra Stefano 
Published: February 2009

AbstractMany real world applications today are built on analyses of movement and related features. Examples of such applications include transportation management, urban planning, tourism services, and animal migration monitoring, among others. Recent database modeling and management research prototypes have the capability to store and manipulate movement data in terms of point or region geometries that evolve over time (moving point or moving and deforming region). This captures the spatio‐temporal trace left by a moving object, but ignores its links with non‐geometric information that enable a semantic interpretation of the movement of moving objects. The concept of trajectory has been introduced to express a more semantic understanding of movement, taking it closer to the perception of applications. This article describes a framework for a semantics‐oriented structuring, modeling and querying of trajectory data. The framework relies on the definition of trajectory‐related ontologies, addressing domain‐independent and application‐specific geometric and semantic facets. Last we briefly discuss how the proposed approach has been applied for a traffic management application.
BRIDGING SCIENCE AND RELIGION: “THE MORE” AND “THE LESS” IN WILLIAM JAMES AND OWEN FLANAGAN
Authors: Taves Ann 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.There is a kinship between Owen Flanagan'sThe Really Hard Problemand William James'sThe Varieties of Religious Experiencethat not only can help us to understand Flanagan's book but also can help scholars, particularly scholars of religion, to be attentive to an important development in the realm of the “spiritual but not religious.” Specifically, Flanagan's book continues a tradition in philosophy, exemplified by James, that addresses questions of religious or spiritual meaning in terms accessible to a broad audience outside the context of organized religions. Both James and Flanagan are concerned to refute the popular perception that the sciences of the mind pose a threat to meaning and particularly to meaningful processes of human growth and transformation. Where James used the subconscious to bridge between science and religion and persuade his readers of the reality of the More, Flanagan uses a scientifically grounded understanding of transcendence to enchant his readers into believing in Less. Although I think that Flanagan's attempt to link the psychological and sociocultural levels of analysis via the concept of transcendence is scientifically premature, his attempt at a naturalistic spirituality raises questions of definition that scholars of religion need to take seriously.
A HARD PROBLEM INDEED
Authors: Peterson Gregory R. 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.Owen Flanagan's The Really Hard Problem provides a rich source of reflection on the question of meaning and ethics within the context of philosophical naturalism. I affirm the title's claim that the quest to find meaning in a purely physical universe is indeed a hard problem by addressing three issues: Flanagan's claim that there can be a scientific/empirical theory of ethics (eudaimonics), that ethics requires moral glue, and whether, in the end, Flanagan solves the hard problem. I suggest that he does not, although he provides much that is of importance and useful for further reflection along the way.
ONE ENCHANTED BEING: NEUROEXISTENTIALISM AND MEANING
Authors: Flanagan Owen 
Published: February 2009

Abstract. The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World is my attempt to explain whether and how existential meaning is possible in a material world, and how such meaning is best conceived naturalistically. Neuroexistentialism conceives of our predicament in accordance with Darwin plus neuroscience. The prospects for our kind of being‐in‐the‐world are limited by our natures as smart but fully embodied short‐lived animals. Many find this picture disenchanting, even depressing. I respond to four criticisms of my relentless upbeat naturalism: that naturalism can make no room for norms, for values; that I overvalue truth at the expense of happiness; that I underestimate the extent to which supernaturalism has made peace with naturalism; and that I can give no account for why humans as finite animals should want to overcome our given natures and seek impersonal, self‐transcendent value.
AN ONTOLOGY OF HEALTH: A CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN HEALTH AND EXISTENCE
Authors: Fante Ryan J. 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.The pursuit of health is one of the most basic and prevalent concerns of humanity. In order to better attain and preserve health, a fundamental and unified description of the concept is required. Using Paul Tillich's ontological framework, I introduce a complete characterization of health and disease is that is useful to the philosophy of medicine and for health‐care workers. Health cannot be understood merely as proper functioning of the physical body or of the separated levels of body, mind, and soul. Rather, the multidimensional unity that is the essence of human life requires a new understanding of health as balanced self‐integration within the multiple human dimensions. The ontological description of health and disease has concrete implications for how health‐care workers should approach healing. It calls for a multidimensional approach to healing in which particular healing is needed and helpful if it considers the other realms of the human. It reveals the importance of accepting limited health as well as the value of faith understood as an ultimate concern because of its ability to wholly integrate the person.
GOD, DISEASE, AND SPIRITUAL DILEMMAS: READING THE LIVES OF WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER
Authors: Eide Megan , Pederson Ann Milliken 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.To write about the disease of breast cancer from both scientific and spiritual perspectives is to reflect upon our genetic and spiritual ancestry. We examine the issues involved in breast cancer at the intersections of spirituality, technology, and science, using the fundamental thing we know about being human: our bodies. Our goal in this essay is to offer close readings of women's spiritual and bodily journeys through the disease of breast cancer. We have discovered that both illness and health come within the stories of particular people and particular disciplines. And to learn more about breast cancer, both scientific and spiritual aspects, one must be attentive to such particularities. Medicine and religion are bodily experiences, and being a body‐self is what it means to be human.
THE BROTHERS BONHOEFFER ON SCIENCE, MORALITY, AND THEOLOGY
Authors: Rasmussen Larry 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.On one level this is a case study in science, religion, and morality, with special attention to the consequences for morality of science's embeddedness in society. On another level this is the science‐and‐theology dialogue between the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his brother Karl‐Friedrich, a physicist. The influence of Karl‐Friedrich and the brothers’ exchanges on Dietrich's prison theology receives special attention. Because this study is set in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and Karl‐Friedrich's work intersected Germany's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, the discussion leads to Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. The attention there is to the interplay of science, religion, and morality at the time the bomb was detonated at the Trinity site.
SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE THEOLOGY OF DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Authors: Holder Rodney D. 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not widely known for engaging with scientific thought, having been heavily influenced by Karl Barth's celebrated stance against natural theology. However, during the period of his maturing theology in prison Bonhoeffer read a significant scientific work, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's The World View of Physics. From this he gained two major insights for his theological outlook. First, he realized that the notion of a “God of the gaps” is futile, not just in science but in other areas of human inquiry. Second, he felt that an infinite universe, as considered by science, would be self‐subsistent and could exist as if there were no God. Bonhoeffer replaced Barth's radical critique of religion with the even more extreme view that it is a mere passing phase in history that grown‐up humanity can dispense with. At the same time Bonhoeffer began an important critique of Barth's reaction, namely, the latter's retreat to a “positivism of revelation.” While Bonhoeffer did not go quite as far as one might like, his approach opened up hopeful avenues for an answer to “the liberal question” and even a revived place for some kind of natural theology.
OAKESHOTT ON THE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: NEED THERE BE A CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION?
Authors: Fuller Timothy 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.Michael Oakeshott reflected on the character of religious experience in various writings throughout his life. In Experience and Its Modes (1933) he analyzed science as a distinctive “mode,” or account of experience as a whole, identifying those assumptions necessary for science to achieve its coherent account of experience in contrast to other modes of experience whose quests for coherence depend on different assumptions. Religious experience, he thought, was integral to the practical mode. The latter experiences the world as interminable tension between what is and what ought to be. The question, Is there a conflict between science and religion? is, in Oakeshott's approach, the question, Is there a conflict between the scientific mode of experience and the practical mode? Insofar as we tend to treat every question as a practical one, these questions seem to make sense. But Oakeshott's analysis leads to the view that scientific experience and religious experience are categorically different accounts of experience abstracted from the whole of experience. They are voices of experience that may speak to each other, but they are not ordered hierarchically. Nor can either absorb the other without insoluble contradictions.
OAKESHOTTIAN MODES AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE EVOLUTION DEBATES
Authors: Abel Corey 
Published: February 2009

Abstract.I examine Michael Oakeshott's theory of modes of experience in light of today's evolution debates and argue that in much of our current debate science and religion irrelevantly attack each other or, less commonly but still irrelevantly, seek out support from the other. An analysis of Oakeshott's idea of religion finds links between his early holistic theory of the state, his individualistic account of religious sensibility, and his theory of political, moral, and religious authority. Such analysis shows that a modern individualistic theory of the state need not be barrenly secular and suggests that a religious sensibility need not be translated into an overmastering desire to use state power to pursue moral or spiritual ends in politics. Finally, Oakeshott's vision of a civil conversation, as both a metaphor for Western civilization and as a quasi‐ethical ideal, shows us how we might balance the recognition of diverse modal truths, the pursuit of singular religious or philosophic truth, and a free political order.
Smoothing Parameter Selection for a Class of Semiparametric Linear Models
Authors: Reiss Philip T. , Todd Ogden R. 
Published: February 2009

SummarySpline-based approaches to non-parametric and semiparametric regression, as well as to regression of scalar outcomes on functional predictors, entail choosing a parameter controlling the extent to which roughness of the fitted function is penalized. We demonstrate that the equations determining two popular methods for smoothing parameter selection, generalized cross-validation and restricted maximum likelihood, share a similar form that allows us to prove several results which are common to both, and to derive a condition under which they yield identical values. These ideas are illustrated by application of functional principal component regression, a method for regressing scalars on functions, to two chemometric data sets.