bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of nutrient addition on vegetation and carbon cycling in an ombrotrophic bog
Authors: BUBIER JILL L. , MOORE TIM R. , BLEDZKI LESZEK A. 
Published: April 2007

AbstractWe measured net ecosystem CO2exchange (NEE), plant biomass and growth, species composition, peat microclimate, and litter decomposition in a fertilization experiment at Mer Bleue Bog, Ottawa, Ontario. The bog is located in the zone with the highest atmospheric nitrogen deposition for Canada, estimated at 0.8–1.2 g N m−2 yr−1(wet deposition as NH4and NO3). To establish the effect of nutrient addition on this ecosystem, we fertilized the bog with six treatments involving the application of 1.6–6 g N m−2 yr−1(as NH4NO3), with and without P and K, in triplicate 3 m × 3 m plots. The initial 5–6 years have shown a loss of firstSphagnum, thenPolytrichummosses, and an increase in vascular plant biomass and leaf area index. Analyses of NEE, measuredin situwith climate‐controlled chambers, indicate that contrary to expectations, the treatments with the highest levels of nutrient addition showed lower rates of maximum NEE and gross photosynthesis, but little change in ecosystem respiration after 5 years. Although shrub biomass and leaf area increased in the high nutrient plots, loss of moss photosynthesis owing to nutrient toxicity, increased vascular plant shading and greater litter accumulation contributed to the lower levels of CO2uptake. Our study highlights the importance of long‐term experiments as we did not observe lower NEE until the fifth year of the experiment. However, this may be a transient response as the treatment plots continue to change. Higher levels of nutrients may cause changes in plant composition and productivity and decrease the ability of peatlands to sequester CO2from the atmosphere.
The relative importance of landscape properties for woodland birds in agricultural environments
Authors: RADFORD JAMES Q , BENNETT ANDREW F 
Published: April 2007

Summary

Studies of landscape change are seldom conducted at scales commensurate with the processes they purport to investigate. Landscape change is a landscape‐level process, yet most studies focus on patches. Even when landscape context is considered, inference remains at the patch‐level. The unit of investigation must be extended beyond individual patches to whole mosaics in order to advance understanding of faunal responses to landscape change.
In this study, we aggregated data from multiple sites per landscape such that both the response and explanatory variables characterized ‘whole’ landscapes, allowing for landscape‐level inference about factors influencing species’ incidence.
We used hierarchical partitioning and Bayesian variable selection methods to develop species‐specific models that examined the influence of four categories of landscape properties – habitat extent, habitat configuration, landscape composition and geographical location – on the incidence of 58 species of woodland‐dependent birds in 24 agricultural landscapes (each 100 km2) in south‐eastern Australia.
There was strong evidence for a positive effect of habitat extent for 27 species. Thirty species were related to at least one of the four landscape composition variables, and geographical location was important for 19 species. Habitat configuration was influential for 13 species and where important, the impacts of fragmentation per se were detrimental.
Variation among species in the influential landscape variables indicates that different species respond to different sets of cues in land mosaics. Thus, although all species were grouped a priori as ‘woodland‐dependent’, expectations based on general ecological characteristics may prove unreliable.
Synthesis and applications. These results underscore the value of moving beyond the fragmentation paradigm focused on the spatial pattern of habitat vs. non‐habitat, to a greater appreciation of the composition and heterogeneity of land mosaics. Landscape‐level inference will enable improved conservation outcomes by recognizing the influence of landscape properties on biota and devising strategies at this scale to complement patch‐based management. We provide strong empirical evidence that biodiversity management in agricultural landscapes must focus on habitat extent. Complementary management of other landscape attributes, such as habitat aggregation and intensity of agricultural land‐use, will also enhance the value of agricultural landscapes for woodland birds.
Phasic and tonic firing properties in rat oculomotor nucleus motoneurons, studied in vitro
Authors: Nieto‐Gonzalez Jose Luis , Carrascal Livia , Nunez‐Abades Pedro , Torres Blas 
Published: April 2007

AbstractAlert‐chronic studies show that ocular motoneurons (Mns) exhibit a phasic and tonic firing correlated with eye saccade‐velocity and position (fixation), respectively. Differences in the phasic and tonic firing among Mns depend on synaptic inputs and/or the intrinsic membrane properties. We have used in vitro slice preparation to investigate the contribution of membrane properties to firing properties of Wistar rat oculomotor nucleus Mns. We recorded different discharge patterns and focused on Mns with sustained discharge (type I) because they were the most abundant, and their firing pattern resembles that reported in alert preparations. Various differences divided these Mns into types IA and IB; the afterhyperpolarization (AHP) phase of the spike was monophasic in IA and biphasic in IB; IA Mns showed tonic or phasic‐tonic firing depending on the current intensity, while IB Mns showed phasic‐tonic discharge; the phasic firing was higher in IB than in IA Mns; IA Mns fired in a narrower range than did IB Mns; and IA Mns showed lower maximum frequency than did IB Mns. In conclusion, IA and IB Mns show different phasic firing properties and dynamic range, supported by intrinsic membrane properties. We suggest that IA and IB Mns innervate fast‐twitch muscle fibres with different contraction speeds, and could contribute to generating a fine phasic signal for a graded muscle contraction. Finally, we have demonstrated an inverse relationship between Mn thresholds and tonic firing gain, concluding that intrinsic membrane properties could not support the covariation between tonic firing gain and recruitment thresholds reported in alert studies.
Order‐specific quantitative patterns of cortical gyrification
Authors: Pillay Praneshri , Manger Paul R. 
Published: April 2007

AbstractWhy the extent of cortical gyrification varies across mammals of different brain sizes is a problem that is not clearly understood. The aim of the present study was to test a hypothesis indicating that the order is a significant phylogenetic grouping in terms of quantifiable gyrification indices (GIs) and thus variation between mammals. The GI was determined from serial sections of the brain of 25 different mammalian species, representing four different orders: primates, carnivores, ungulates and rodents. Image J analysis was used to measure the contours of the cerebral cortex, and the GI was calculated using three different methods of analysis: complete vs outer; gyral vs sulcal; and outer vs inner surface contours. The measurements were then computed against the brain weights of each species within the order. An increasing GI correlates with an increasing brain weight in all the mammalian orders. Each order has its own specific allometric pattern that is significantly different from the other orders. The ungulates were the mammals with the most gyrencephalic brains, these species being significantly more gyrencephalic than all other mammals when species of similar brain weights are compared. The North American beaver has an atypically lissencephalic brain for its size, differing from the trend for increased gyrencephaly found in the other rodent species examined. Our results show definite trends and patterns specific to each order; thus, it would seem that the order is a significant phylogenetic grouping in terms of this neural parameter, from which we can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty the GI of any species of a particular order given the brain weight.
Economic Growth and Potential Punishment Under Dictatorship
Authors: Escribà‐Folch Abel 
Published: April 2007

SUMMARYThis paper explores whether the probability of being punished after losing power leads dictators to restrain their level of predation and, thus, increase economic growth. To do so, a simple model of predatory rule is developed, and the consequences of an increasing probability of punishment after loosing power explored. New data on dictators' post‐exit fate have permitted to estimate the predicted probability of punishment taking place by using multinomial logit. Outgoing dictators' strength and the international context are shown to be the main determinants of post‐exit scenarios. The probability of punishment is proven to have a positive and significant effect on the rate of growth of GDP under alternative specifications of growth regressions.
Intra‐firm Wage Dispersion and Firm Performance – Is There a Uniform Relationship?
Authors: Jirjahn Uwe , Kraft Kornelius 
Published: April 2007

SUMMARYEmpirical studies examining the impact of intra‐firm wage dispersion on firm performance report extremely mixed results. Yet, almost all of the studies implicitly assume that there is a uniform relationship between wage dispersion and firm performance across all types of firms. In contrast, we argue that the effects of wage dispersion depend on the industrial relations regime and the type of incentive scheme employed. Using data on a sample of manufacturing establishments in Germany, our findings confirm that wage dispersion interacts with internal promotions, individual and group piece rates, works council presence and collective bargaining coverage. This strongly supports the notion that moderating factors play an important role in the relationship between intra‐firm wage dispersion and productivity.
Governance and Growth Revisited
Authors: Seldadyo Harry , Nugroho Emmanuel Pandu , De Haan Jakob 
Published: April 2007

SUMMARYRecent studies yield diverging outcomes on the governance‐growth relationship. In this paper we construct a new index of governance using a latent variable approach and test whether this index is related to growth with varying samples of countries and different conditioning variables. The results show that our index has a positive and significant impact on economic growth. This conclusion is fairly robust for various samples and conditioning variables.
Old Dilemmas or New Challenges? The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan
Authors: Kandiyoti Deniz 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTThis article situates the politics of gender in Afghanistan in the nexus of global and local influences that shape the policy agenda of post‐Taliban reconstruction. Three sets of factors that define the parameters of current efforts at securing gender justice are analysed: a troubled history of state–society relations; the profound social transformations brought about by years of prolonged conflict; and the process of institution‐building under way since the Bonn Agreement in 2001. This evolving institutional framework opens up a new field of contestation between the agenda of international donor agencies, an aid‐dependent government and diverse political factions, some with conservative Islamist platforms. At the grassroots, the dynamics of gendered disadvantage, the erosion of local livelihoods, the criminalization of the economy and insecurity at the hands of armed groups combine seamlessly to produce extreme forms of female vulnerability. The ways in which these contradictory influences play out in the context of a fluid process of political settlement will be decisive in determining prospects for the future.
Escaping Violence, Seeking Freedom: Why Children in Bangladesh Migrate to the Street
Authors: Conticini Alessandro , Hulme David 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTIn Bangladesh, as in many developing countries, there is a widespread belief amongst the public, policy makers and social workers that children ‘abandon’ their families and migrate to the street because of economic poverty. Ignoring and avoiding mounting evidence to the contrary, this dominant narrative posits that children whose basic material needs cannot be met within the household move to the street. This article explores this narrative through the analysis of detailed empirical research with children in Bangladesh. It finds that social factors lie behind most street migration and, in particular, that moves to the street are closely associated with violence towards and abuse of children within the household and local community. These findings are consistent with the wider literature on street migration from other countries. In Bangladesh, those who seek to reduce the flow of children to the streets need to focus on social policy, especially on how to reduce the excessive control and emotional, physical and sexual violence that occur in some households. Economic growth and reductions in income poverty will be helpful, but they will not be sufficient to reduce street migration by children.
Community Driven Development, Collective Action and Elite Capture in Indonesia
Authors: Dasgupta Aniruddha , Beard Victoria A. 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTIn response to the well documented limitations of top‐down, modernist and authoritarian approaches that have dominated development, practitioners and academics increasingly promote more community‐based approaches. The World Bank uses the term ‘community driven development’ to describe projects that increase a community's control over the development process. In an analysis of a community driven poverty alleviation project in Indonesia, this article examines the vulnerability of such an approach to elite capture. The expected relationships among a community's capacity for collective action, elite control over project decisions and elite capture of project benefits were not found. In cases where the project was controlled by elites, benefits continued to be delivered to the poor, and where power was the most evenly distributed, resource allocation to the poor was restricted. Communities where both non‐elites and elites participated in democratic self‐governance, however, did demonstrate an ability to redress elite capture when it occurred.
Changes in Food Consumption and the Implications for Food Security and Undernourishment: India in the 1990s
Authors: Ray Ranjan 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTThis article examines the changes in the nature and quantity of food consumption in India during the reform decade of the 1990s, and analyses their implications for calorie intake and undernourishment. The study documents the decline in cereal consumption, especially in the urban areas, and provides evidence that suggests an increase in the prevalence of undernourishment over the period 1987/88 to 2001/2002. The results also point to a significant number of households, even in the top expenditure decile, suffering from undernourishment. This calls for a reassessment of the current strategy of directing the Targetted Public Distribution System (TPDS) exclusively at households ‘below the poverty line’. This study shows that, both as a source of subsidized calories and as a poverty reducing instrument, the PDS is of much greater importance to female‐headed households than it is to the rest of the population. Another important result is that, notwithstanding the sharp decline in their expenditure share during the 1990s, rice and wheat continue to provide the dominant share of calories, especially for the rural poor. The overall message is that, especially in a period of significant economic change, one needs to go beyond the standard expenditure‐based money metric measures to assess the changes in the living standards of households.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR CONTROL; ETHICS OF PATIENT PREPARATION FOR SELF‐MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASE
Authors: REDMAN BARBARA K. 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTPatient self‐management (SM) of chronic disease is an evolving movement, with some forms documented as yielding important outcomes. Potential benefits from proper preparation and maintenance of patient SM skills include quality care tailored to the patient's preferences and life goals, and increase in skills in problem solving, confidence and success, generalizable to other parts of the patient's life. Four central ethical issues can be identified: 1) insufficient patient/family access to preparation that will optimize their competence to SM without harm to themselves, 2) lack of acknowledgement that an ethos of patient empowerment can mask transfer of responsibility beyond patient/family competency to handle that responsibility, 3) prevailing assumptions that preparation for SM cannot result in harm and that its main purpose is to deliver physician instructions, and 4) lack of standards for patient selection, which has the potential to exclude individuals who could benefit from learning to SM. Technology assessment offers one framework through which to examine available data about efficacy of patient SM and to answer the central question of what conditions must be put in place to optimize the benefits of SM while assuring that potential harms are controlled.
ACCULTURATION AND END‐OF‐LIFE DECISION MAKING: COMPARISON OF JAPANESE AND JAPANESE‐AMERICAN FOCUS GROUPS
Authors: BITO SEIJI , MATSUMURA SHINJI , SINGER MARJORIE KAGAWA , MEREDITH LISA S. , FUKUHARA SHUNICHI , WENGER NEIL S. 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTVariation in decision‐making about end‐of‐life care among ethnic groups creates clinical conflicts. In order to understand changes in preferences for end‐of‐life care among Japanese who immigrate to the United States, we conducted 18 focus groups with 122 participants: 65 English‐speaking Japanese Americans, 29 Japanese‐speaking Japanese Americans and 28 Japanese living in Japan.Negative feelings toward living in adverse health states and receiving life‐sustaining treatment in such states permeated all three groups. Fear of being meiwaku, a physical, psychological or financial caregiving burden on loved ones, was a prominent concern. They preferred to die pokkuri (popping off) before they become end stage or physically frail. All groups preferred group‐oriented decision‐making with family. Although advance directives were generally accepted, Japanese participants saw written directives as intrusive whereas Japanese Americans viewed them mainly as tools to reduce conflict created by dying person's wishes and a family's kazoku no jo– responsibility to sustain the dying patient. These findings suggest that in the United States Japanese cultural values concerning end‐of‐life care and decision‐making process are largely preserved.
REGULATION OF CLINICAL RESEARCH AND BIOETHICS IN PORTUGAL
Authors: CARVALHO FATIMA LAMPREIA 
Published: April 2007

ABSTRACTThis article presents an overview of the Portuguese transposition of the European Directive on Good Clinical Practice (2001/20/E) concerning scientific and academic debates on bioethics and clinical investigation. Since the Directive was transposed into Portuguese law by its National Assembly, the bureaucracy of clinical trials has been ever more complex. Despite demands for swift application processes by the Pharmaceutical industry, supported by the European Parliament, the Directive's transcription to the national law has not always delivered the expected outcome. However, this has led to an increased number of applications for clinical trials in Portuguese hospitals. In this article I revise bioethical publications and decree‐laws enabling an informed appraisal of the anxieties and prospects for the implementation of the clinical trials Directive in Portugal. This article also places the European Directive in the field of sociology of bioethics, arguing that Portuguese bioethical institutions differ from those of the US, and also from Northern European counterparts. The main divergence is that those people in Portugal who claim expertise in ‘legal’ bioethics do not dominate either the bureaucratic structure of research or ethics committees for health. Even experts in the applied ethics field now claim that ‘professional bioethicists do not exist’. The recent creation of a national Ethics Committee for Clinical Investigation (CEIC) in line with the European Directive on Good Clinical Practice (GCP) will not change the present imbalance between different professional jurisdictions in the national bioethical debate in Portugal.
Foundation for problem‐based gaming
Authors: Kiili Kristian 
Published: April 2007

AbstractEducational games may offer a viable strategy for developing students' problem‐solving skills. However, the state of art of educational game research does not provide an account for that. Thus, the aim of this research is to develop an empirically allocated model about problem‐based gaming that can be utilised to design pedagogically meaningful games. The proposed model was evaluated through a business simulation game. The interviews indicated that authenticity, collaboration and learning by doing were found to be the most important characteristics of effective educational games. Results also showed that the proposed model describes well the problem‐based gaming process in which the reflection phase seems to be a vital factor. The outcome of the reflection phase may be personal synthesis of knowledge, validation of hypothesis laid or a new playing strategy to be tested. However, because of the small sample size of this study, more research on the topic is recommended. Especially, ways to support reflection in games needs to be studied.
An application of games‐based learning within software engineering
Authors: Connolly Thomas M. , Stansfield Mark , Hainey Thomas 
Published: April 2007

AbstractFor some time now, computer games have played an important role in both children and adults' leisure activities. While there has been much written on the negative aspects of computer games, it has also been recognised that they have potential advantages and benefits. There is no doubt that computer games are highly engaging and incorporate features that are extremely compelling. It is these highly engaging features of computer games that have attracted the interests of educationalists. The use of games‐based learning has been growing for many years now; however, within software engineering, there is still a dearth of empirical evidence to support this approach. In this paper, we examine the literature on the use of computer games to teach software engineering concepts and describe a computer game we have been developing to teach these concepts.
Games and learning come together to maximise effectiveness: The challenge of bridging the gap
Authors: Pannese Lucia , Carlesi Maria 
Published: April 2007

AbstractThe authors are designing and carrying out some training sessions based on serious games with customers from different business environments and with some university student groups, both in northern Italy. Some business case studies are described in this article specifying the context, the training goal, the adopted training solution and the main characteristics of the designed game. Some screenshots are also shown. Furthermore, the authors are carrying out a survey both in the business and the university environment to analyse how the learners perceive these kinds of games in terms of effectiveness, engagement, pleasure, usability and freedom of behaviour while playing. Some results are reported in this paper, and the comparison between students' and employees' perception is shown. The questionnaire used can be found in the Appendix.