bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Paying for the conservation of endangered ecosystems: a comparison of direct and indirect approaches
Authors: Simpson R. David , Sedjo Roger A. 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTA number of international conservation donors support efforts to encourage conservation indirectly by subsidizing commercial activities. Such plans beg two questions. First, if commercial ventures are expected to be profitable, why is external financing necessary for their initiation? Second, if commercial ventures are not expected to be profitable, could not greater incentives for conservation be generated by making direct payments? We examine these questions in detail. While we find that the practical impediments to instituting a direct payment programme may be substantial, the practical impediments to instituting any effective conservation programme may be substantial. On balance, there is a strong case to be made for greater experimentation with direct payment schemes than heretofore.
Wildlife management, land-use and conflicts
Authors: Schulz Carl-Erik , Skonhoft Anders 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTThe paper analyses the conflict between wildlife conservation and its accompanying land-use in an East African context. In the model there are two agents. First, there is an agency managing the wildlife and the habitat of the wildlife, which is referred to as parkland. On the other hand, there is the group of agro-pastoralists living in the vicinity of the wildlife habitat, whose land-use is referred to as rangelands. The parkland is used for tourism production and hunting, while the rangelands are used for agro-pastoral production. Both agents will find it beneficial to expand their land-use, so there is a land-use conflict. This is analysed in two steps. First, social optimality is studied; then we study the utilization of the wildlife and its accompanying land-use when there is no unified resource policy and the park agency follows its self-interest. The effects on the two different management schemes of changing economic conditions, such as the recommendations of the CITES convention and a programme subsidizing agro-pastoral production, are discussed.
“And I still haven't found what I'm Looking for.”
Authors: Atkinson Simon 
Published: July 2008

Does the following scenario sound familiar? You have an enormous amount of data that needs putting into some sort of coherent order. Your external Web site and company intranet contain vast numbers of documents and offer links to yet more information sources, all containing yet more data.Your role in this deluge of information often leaves you feeling as though you are running to stand still. There are thousands of users (company employees as well as external browsers) searching for thousands of different documents and you have the unenviable job of making all of this information available to them in an efficient manner. Too much data, too little data, or data which is inaccurate are all potential problems to a user.
The Effects of Divided Attention on Speech Motor, Verbal Fluency, and Manual Task Performance
Authors: Dromey Christopher , Shim Erin 
Published: July 2008

Purpose

The goal of this study was to evaluate aspects of the
functional distance hypothesis,
which predicts that tasks regulated by brain networks in closer anatomic proximity will interfere more with each other than tasks controlled by spatially distant regions. Speech, verbal fluency, and manual motor tasks were examined to ascertain whether right-handed activity would interfere more with speech and language performance because of the presumed greater demands on the left hemisphere.

Method
Twenty young adults completed a speech task (repeating a sentence), a verbal fluency task (listing words beginning with the same letter), and right- and left-handed motor tasks (placing pegs and washers in a pegboard) in isolation and concurrently.

Results
Speech kinematic data showed that during concurrent performance of manual tasks, lip displacement and peak velocity decreased, whereas sound pressure level increased. Spatiotemporal variability increased when the nondominant hand was used for a motor task. Manual motor scores significantly decreased when concurrently performed with the verbal fluency task but not with sentence repetition.

Conclusion
These findings suggest that the control of concurrent tasks may be more complex than is predicted by the functional distance hypothesis.
Developmental Changes in the Effects of Utterance Length and Complexity on Speech Movement Variability
Authors: Sadagopan Neeraja , Smith Anne 
Published: July 2008

PurposeThe authors examined the effects of utterance length and linguistic complexity on speech movement consistency for 210 participants between the ages of 5 and 22 years. Variability and durational analyses were conducted to (a) determine a more complete picture of the developmental course of earlier observations of the effects of linguistic constructs on speech motor variability and (b) describe trends for duration of the same sequence of words in different sentential contexts across development.MethodLower-lip movement was recorded during the production of “buy Bobby a puppy” spoken in isolation as well as embedded as a phrase in 2 longer, more complex sentences.ResultsCompared with young adults, children demonstrated higher variability in producing repeated movement sequences for the target word sequence across all conditions. Also, for all age groups except young adults, increased processing demands resulted in significantly increased movement trajectory variability. Duration analyses suggest that around age 9 years, children begin to use adult-like pre-speech processes to plan the timing of sentence internal phrases, and maturation of these planning processes continues through late adolescence.ConclusionThese results provide further evidence for language–motor interactions and for a protracted course of speech motor development that continues well into adolescence.
Multichannel Compression: Effects of Reduced Spectral Contrast on Vowel Identification
Authors: Bor Stephanie , Souza Pamela , Wright Richard 
Published: July 2008

Purpose
To clarify if large numbers of wide dynamic range compression channels provide advantages for vowel identification and to measure its acoustic effects.

Methods
Eight vowels produced by 12 talkers in the /hVd/ context were compressed using 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 channels. Formant contrast indices (mean formant peak minus mean formant trough; maximum formant peak minus minimum formant trough) were developed to quantify spectral changes. Twenty listeners with mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss identified the compressed vowels in an 8-alternative forced-choice procedure.

Results
Formant contrast measures revealed significant spectral flattening for 6 of the 8 vowels as channel number increased. A significant decrease in vowel identification performance was also observed as spectral contrast decreased.

Conclusions
Increasing the number of wide dynamic range compression channels may not be beneficial for all speech signals, and individual vowel identification performance can vary greatly for listeners with similar hearing loss.
Babbling, Chewing, and Sucking: Oromandibular Coordination at 9 Months
Authors: Steeve Roger W. , Moore Christopher A. , Green Jordan R. , Reilly Kevin J. , Ruark McMurtrey Jacki 
Published: July 2008

PurposeThe ontogeny of mandibular control is important for understanding the general neurophysiologic development for speech and alimentary behaviors. Prior investigations suggest that mandibular control is organized distinctively across speech and nonspeech tasks in 15-month-olds and adults and that, with development, these extant forms of motor control primarily undergo refinement and rescaling. The present investigation was designed to evaluate whether these coordinative infrastructures for alimentary behaviors and speech are evident during the earliest period of their co-occurrence.MethodElectromyographic (EMG) signals were obtained from the mandibular muscle groups of 15 typically developing 9-month-old children during sucking, chewing, and speech.ResultsUnlike prior investigations of 12- and 15-month-olds and adults, 9-month-olds' analyses of peak correlations among agonist and antagonist comparisons of mandibular EMG data revealed weak coupling during sucking, chewing, and babble; associated lag values for antagonist muscle groups indicated greater synchrony during alimentary behaviors and less synchrony during babble. Unlike the speech data of 15-month-olds, 9-month-olds exhibited consistent results across speech subtasks.ConclusionThese findings were consistent with previous results in which mandibular coordination across behaviors was more variable for younger age groups, whereas the essential organization of each behavior closely reflected that seen in older infants and adults.
Stuttering and Natural Speech Processing of Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Verbs
Authors: Weber-Fox Christine , Hampton Amanda 
Published: July 2008

Purpose
Previous findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) indicate that adults who stutter (AWS) exhibit processing differences for visually presented linguistic information. This study explores how neural activations for AWS may differ for a linguistic task that does not require preparation for overt articulation or engage the articulatory loop for silent speech.

Method
Syntactic and semantic processing constraints were examined in AWS and adults who are normally fluent (AWNF) by assessment of their behavioral performance and ERPs in a natural speech listening task.

Results
AWS performed similarly to AWNF in identifying verb-agreement violations and semantic anomalies, but ERPs elicited by syntactic and semantic constraints indicated atypical neural functions for AWS. ERPs of the AWNF displayed an expected N400 for reduced semantic expectations and a typical P600 for verb-agreement violations. In contrast, both N400s and P600s for the semantic and verb-agreement conditions were observed in the ERPs of the AWS.

Conclusions
The findings suggest that AWS may engage semantic–syntactic mechanisms more generally for semantic and syntactic processing. These findings converge with earlier studies using visual stimuli to indicate that whereas linguistic abilities are normal in AWS, underlying brain activity mediating some aspects of language processing may function differently.
Phonatory Effects of Airway Dehydration: Preliminary Evidence for Impaired Compensation to Oral Breathing in Individuals With a History of Vocal Fatigue
Authors: Sivasankar Mahalakshmi , Erickson Elizabeth , Schneider Sara , Hawes Ashleigh 
Published: July 2008

PurposeAirway drying is detrimental to phonation and is posited to exacerbate vocal fatigue. However, limited research has demonstrated the adverse phonatory effects of dehydration in speakers reporting vocal fatigue. We compared the negative phonatory consequences of short-term oral breathing at low, moderate, and high humidity in individuals reporting a history of vocal fatigue and control participants.MethodFemales reporting a history of vocal fatigue (N= 8) and matched controls (N= 8) participated in a repeated-measures design over 3 different days.ResultsOral breathing at low and moderate humidity increased phonation threshold pressure (PTP) to a greater extent in individuals reporting a history of vocal fatigue as compared to controls. Conversely, PTP did not increase in either participant group after oral breathing in a humid environment. Perceived phonatory effort (PPE) ratings were poorly correlated with PTP.ConclusionsThe emergence of between-group differences in PTP at low and moderate but not high ambient humidity demonstrates that drying challenges might be detrimental to voice production in individuals with a history of vocal fatigue. Based on the phonatory effects of dehydration, we suggest that individuals reporting vocal fatigue may demonstrate impaired compensation to airway drying induced by short-term oral breathing.
Use of simulated data as a tool for testing the performance of diversity indices in response to an organic enrichment event
Authors: Barry Jon , Rees Hubert L. 
Published: July 2008

Abstract
Barry, J., and Rees, H. L. 2008. Use of simulated data as a tool for testing the performance of diversity indices in response to an organic enrichment event. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1456–1461. We demonstrate how data on macrobenthic species numbers and abundance after an organic enrichment event can be simulated using the empirical Pearson–Rosenberg model in combination with further plausible ecological assumptions. The simulations were programmed in the statistical package R, using an ecological framework that included classification of species into opportunistic, tolerant, and sensitive types, together with probabilities for the occurrence of these types at any particular point in the event history. The simulations also included assumptions about the dominance of species types. The exercise was successful in that realistic, simulated datasets could be produced quickly and, because of the stochastic nature of parts of the simulation process, repeat simulations allowed variation of selected diversity indices calculated on the series to be assessed. The approach could provide a useful tool to evaluate both existing and new indicators.
Biological indicators of disturbance at a dredged-material disposal site in Liverpool Bay, UK: an assessment using time-series data
Authors: Whomersley Paul , Ware Suzanne , Rees Hubert L. , Mason Claire , Bolam Thi , Huxham Mark , Bates Helen 
Published: July 2008

Abstract
Whomersley, P., Ware, S., Rees, H. L., Mason, C., Bolam, T., Huxham, M., and Bates, H. 2008. Biological indicators of disturbance at a dredged-material disposal site in Liverpool Bay, UK: an assessment using time-series data. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1414–1420. The development of reliable indicators of disturbance in the marine environment is essential because of increasing anthropogenic pressures and the need for more effective regulation. Our objective was to evaluate 13 nationally and internationally recommended metrics, using a large dataset derived from annual (1996–2003) macro-invertebrate infaunal surveys of a Liverpool Bay dredged-material disposal site. The primary and derived univariate metrics, along with multivariate derivations, were assessed and scored against six selection criteria. Metrics that did not correlate with the pressure indicator (the annual quantity of material disposed of) were discounted from further analysis. Of the 13 metrics evaluated, only measures of species number and Margalef’s species richness index were significantly correlated. Although assemblage types were significantly different between stations, common time patterns were observed, indicating that underlying larger scale, low-frequency events may have influenced assemblage development at all locations.
Substantial biases in ultra-short read data sets from high-throughput DNA sequencing
Authors: Dohm Juliane C. , Lottaz Claudio , Borodina Tatiana , Himmelbauer Heinz 
Published: July 2008

Abstract
Novel sequencing technologies permit the rapid production of large sequence data sets. These technologies are likely to revolutionize genetics and biomedical research, but a thorough characterization of the ultra-short read output is necessary. We generated and analyzed two Illumina 1G ultra-short read data sets, i.e. 2.8 million 27mer reads from a Beta vulgaris genomic clone and 12.3 million 36mers from the Helicobacter acinonychis genome. We found that error rates range from 0.3% at the beginning of reads to 3.8% at the end of reads. Wrong base calls are frequently preceded by base G. Base substitution error frequencies vary by 10- to 11-fold, with A &gt; C transversion being among the most frequent and C &gt; G transversions among the least frequent substitution errors. Insertions and deletions of single bases occur at very low rates. When simulating re-sequencing we found a 20-fold sequencing coverage to be sufficient to compensate errors by correct reads. The read coverage of the sequenced regions is biased; the highest read density was found in intervals with elevated GC content. High Solexa quality scores are over-optimistic and low scores underestimate the data quality. Our results show different types of biases and ways to detect them. Such biases have implications on the use and interpretation of Solexa data, for de novo sequencing, re-sequencing, the identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms and DNA methylation sites, as well as for transcriptome analysis.
Metabolic Network Fluxes in Heterotrophic Arabidopsis Cells: Stability of the Flux Distribution under Different Oxygenation Conditions
Authors: Williams Thomas C.R. , Miguet Laurent , Masakapalli Shyam K. , Kruger Nicholas J. , Sweetlove Lee J. , Ratcliffe R. George 
Published: July 2008

AbstractSteady-state labeling experiments with [1-13C]Glc were used to measure multiple metabolic fluxes through the pathways of central metabolism in a heterotrophic cell suspension culture of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). The protocol was based on in silico modeling to establish the optimal labeled precursor, validation of the isotopic and metabolic steady state, extensive nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of the redistribution of label into soluble metabolites, starch, and protein, and a comprehensive set of biomass measurements. Following a simple modification of the cell culture procedure, cells were grown at two oxygen concentrations, and flux maps of central metabolism were constructed on the basis of replicated experiments and rigorous statistical analysis. Increased growth rate at the higher O2 concentration was associated with an increase in fluxes throughout the network, and this was achieved without any significant change in relative fluxes despite differences in the metabolite profile of organic acids, amino acids, and carbohydrates. The balance between biosynthesis and respiration within the tricarboxylic acid cycle was unchanged, with 38% ± 5% of carbon entering used for biosynthesis under standard O2 conditions and 33% ± 2% under elevated O2. These results add to the emerging picture of the stability of the central metabolic network and its capacity to respond to physiological perturbations with the minimum of rearrangement. The lack of correlation between the change in metabolite profile, which implied significant disruption of the metabolic network following the alteration in the oxygen supply, and the unchanging flux distribution highlights a potential difficulty in the interpretation of metabolomic data.
The incidence of autoimmune thyroid disease: a systematic review of the literature
Authors: McGrogan Anita , Seaman Helen E. , Wright John W. , De Vries Corinne S. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryObjective  To undertake a systematic review of literature published between 1980 and 2008 on the incidence of autoimmune thyroid disease.Design  All relevant papers found through searches of Medline, EMBASE and ScienceDirect were critically appraised and an assessment was made of the reliability of the reported incidence data.Results  The reported incidence of autoimmune hypothyroidism varied between 2·2/100 000/year (males) and 498·4/100 000/year (females) and for autoimmune hyperthyroidism, incidence ranged from 0·70/100 000/year (Black males) to 99/100 000/year (Caucasian females). Higher incidence rates were found in women compared to men for all types of autoimmune thyroid disease. The majority of studies included in the review investigated Caucasian populations mainly from Scandinavia, Spain, the UK and the USA. It is possible that nonautoimmune cases were included in the incidence rates reported here, which would give an overestimation in the incidence rates of autoimmune disease presented.Conclusion  To our knowledge this is the most comprehensive systematic review of autoimmune thyroid disease conducted in the past two decades. Studies of incidence of autoimmune thyroid disease have only been conducted in a small number of mainly western countries. Our best estimates of the incidence of hypothyroidism is 350/100 000/year in women and 80/100 000/year in men; the incidence of hyperthyroidism is 80/100 000/year in women and 8/100 000/year in men.
Predictors of life satisfaction in individuals with intellectual disabilities
Authors: Miller S. M. , Chan F. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractBackground The purpose of this study was to examine factors that predict life satisfaction in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID). Two groups of variables were studied: life skills (interpersonal, instrumental and leisure) and higher‐order predictors (social support, self‐determination and productivity).Method Fifty‐six participants with ID were recruited from two community agencies in Wisconsin. Data were collected using both a self‐report inventory, which was administered to each individual in an interview format, and a behaviour rating scale, which was completed by a knowledgeable staff member. Hierarchical regression was used to analyse the data.Results Both sets of variables were found to explain a significant amount of the variance in life satisfaction. Within the sets, social support and interpersonal skills were individually significantly associated with life satisfaction.Conclusion It is hoped that the results of this study will help support providers organise services in such a way that maximises the life satisfaction of the consumers that they serve.
Rates of exocytosis and endocytosis in Arabidopsis root hairs and pollen tubes
Authors: KETELAAR T. , GALWAY M.E. , MULDER B.M. , EMONS A.M.C. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryExocytosis and endocytosis are pivotal in many biological processes, but remain difficult to quantify. Here we combine a new algorithm for estimating vesicle size with a detailed morphological analysis of tip‐growing cells, in which exocytosis is highly localized and therefore more readily quantified. Cell preservation was rendered as life‐like as possible by rapid freezing. This allowed us to produce the first estimates of exocytosis rates in the root hairs and pollen tubes of the model plant Arabidopsis. To quantify exocytosis and endocytosis rates during cell growth, we measured the diameter of vesicles located in the tips of Arabidopsis root hairs and pollen tubes and the widths of cell walls and the cell lumen in longitudinal thin transmission electron microscopic sections. In addition, we measured growth velocities of Arabidopsis root hairs and pollen tubes, using video microscopy. The number of exocytotic vesicles required for cell wall expansion, and the amount of excess membrane inserted into the plasma membrane to be internalized, were estimated from the values that were obtained. The amount of excess membrane that is inserted into the plasma membrane during cell growth was estimated as 86.7% in root hairs and 79% in pollen tubes. This membrane has to be recycled by endocytosis. From counting of the total number of vesicles that is present in thin EM sections through the pollen tube tip, we estimated the average number of vesicles that is present in the tip of pollen tubes. By calculating the total amount of membrane and cell wall material that is required for continued cell growth, assuming that all vesicles are exocytotic, we estimated that pollen tubes continue to grow for 33 s when delivery of vesicles to the tip is inhibited. We arrested vesicle delivery to the tip by application of cytochalasin D. After cytochalasin D application, pollen tubes continued to grow for 30–40 s, which is in the same range as the estimated value of 33 s and shows that in this time frame, the availability of exocytotic vesicles is not a limiting factor.