bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comparison of hand‐to‐hand bioimpedance and anthropometry equations versus dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry for the assessment of body fat percentage in 17–18‐year‐old conscripts
Authors: Lintsi Mart , Kaarma Helje , Kull Ingrid 
Published: March 2004

SummaryIn the present study, hand‐to‐hand bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), skinfold (SKF) thickness and height–weight (body mass index, BMI)‐based equations and dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DEXA), as a criterion method, were compared with each other in the assessment of body fat percentage (BF%) in 17–18‐year‐old Estonian conscripts (n = 32). The Omron®BF body fat monitor estimated that BF% was lower than that of the criterion method DEXA. The difference between DEXA and Omron®BF 300 (III) was higher (1·1 ± 3·0%; P = 0·04) and that between DEXA and Omron®BF 306 lower (0·2 ± 3·0%; P>0·05). Omron®BF 300 (I) and (II) (series 8) had intermediate difference (0·9 ± 3·0 and 0·9 ± 3·0; P>0·05) when compared with DEXA. Three anthropometric equations estimated a higher BF% than cthat of DEXA. The Durnin & Womersley SKF equation BF% (1·0 ± 2·4; P = 0·03) was higher than that of the DEXA. Deurenberg et al. and Gallagher et al. BMI‐based equations overestimation yielded 0·9 ± 3·7 and 0·6 ± 3·8 BF% (P>0·05). From the anthropometric equations, only the Deurenberg et al. SKF equation slightly underestimated 0·5 ± 3·4 BF% (P>0·05). DEXA‐assessed BF% had highest correlation with SKF equations (r = 0·93), less so with BIA (r = 0·88–0·89) and lowest with BMI equation‐assessed BF% (r = 0·81–0·84). All values were significant at P<0·001. We can conclude that the Omron®BF 306 body fat monitor and the anthropometric Deurenberg et al. SKF equation yielded results close to the DEXA BF%.
Cosmosycanus, a new genus of harpactorine assassin bug established for Agriosphodrus perelegans (Heteroptera: Reduviidae)
Authors: ISHIKAWA Tadashi , TOMOKUNI Masaaki 
Published: March 2004

AbstractA new monotypic genus Cosmosycanus is established for Agriosphodrus perelegans Breddin, 1903. This genus is separable from Agriosphodrus Stål, 1867 by the head being much longer than the pronotum, and the posterior pronotal lobe lacking a median depression. The new genus is also distinguished from Sycanus Amyot and Serville, 1843 by the smooth posterior pronotal lobe and the unspined and non‐tuberculate scutellum. The type species, Cosmosycanus perelegans, comb. nov. is redescribed and considered the senior synonym of Sycanus elongatulus Distant, 1919.
Chalcididae (Hymenoptera) from rice stores in Thailand, with description of two new species
Authors: KONISHI Kazuhiko , NARENDRAN Thekke C. , IMAMURA Taro , VISARATHANONTH Porntip 
Published: March 2004

AbstractFive species of Chalcididae (Hymenoptera) were collected from rice stores in Thailand.Proconura minusaNarendran was dominant and is thought to be an important parasitoid ofSitotroga cerealella(Olivier). Many individuals ofProconura caryobori(Hanna) were collected, and the host in rice stores of this species wasCorcyra cephalonica(Stainton).Antrocephalus mitys(Walker) is known to parasitizeC. cephalonica, but few individuals were collected; therefore, it is thought not to be important in Thailand.Notaspidiella clavataNarendran and Konishi sp. nov. andNotaspidium thailandicumNarendran and Konishi sp. nov. are described.
Banks versus Venture Capital: Project Evaluation, Screening, and Expropriation
Authors: Ueda Masako 
Published: March 2004

ABSTRACTWhy do some start‐up firms raise funds from banks and others from venture capitalists? To address this question, I study a model in which the venture capitalist can evaluate the entrepreneur's project more accurately than the bank but can also threaten to steal it from the entrepreneur. Consistent with evidence regarding venture capital finance, the model implies that the characteristics of a firm financing through venture capitalists are relatively little collateral, high growth, high risk, and high profitability. The model also suggests that tighter protection of intellectual property rights encourages entrepreneurs to finance through venture capitalists.
Default Risk in Equity Returns
Authors: Vassalou Maria , Xing Yuhang 
Published: March 2004

ABSTRACTThis is the first study that uses Merton's (1974) option pricing model to compute default measures for individual firms and assess the effect of default risk on equity returns. The size effect is a default effect, and this is also largely true for the book‐to‐market (BM) effect. Both exist only in segments of the market with high default risk. Default risk is systematic risk. The Fama–French (FF) factors SMB and HML contain some default‐related information, but this is not the main reason that the FF model can explain the cross section of equity returns.
International Evidence on Institutional Trading Behavior and Price Impact
Authors: Chiyachantana Chiraphol N. , Jain Pankaj K. , Jiang Christine , Wood Robert A. 
Published: March 2004

ABSTRACTThis study characterizes institutional trading in international stocks from 37 countries during 1997 to 1998 and 2001. We find that the underlying market condition is a major determinant of the price impact and, more importantly, of the asymmetry between price impacts of institutional buy and sell orders. In bullish markets, institutional purchases have a bigger price impact than sells; however, in the bearish markets, sells have a higher price impact. This differs from previous findings on price impact asymmetry. Our study further suggests that price impact varies depending on order characteristics, firm‐specific factors, and cross‐country differences.
Trading Activity and Price Volatility in the Municipal Bond Market
Authors: Downing Chris , Zhang Frank 
Published: March 2004

ABSTRACTUtilizing a comprehensive database of transactions in municipal bonds, we investigate the volume–volatility relation in the municipal bond market. We find a positive relation between the number of transactions and a bond's price volatility. In contrast to previous studies, we find a negative relation between average deal size and price volatility. These results are found to be robust throughout the sample. Our results are inconsistent with current theoretical models of the volume–volatility relation. These inconsistencies may arise because current models fail to account for the effects of overall market liquidity on the costs of large transactions.
Toward a National Market System for U.S. Exchange–listed Equity Options
Authors: Battalio Robert , Hatch Brian , Jennings Robert 
Published: March 2004

ABSTRACTIn its response to the 1975 Congressional mandate to implement a national market system for financial securities, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initially exempted the option market. Recent dramatic changes in the structure of the option market prompted the SEC to revisit this issue. We examine a sample of actively traded, multiply listed equity options to ask whether this market's characteristics appear consistent with the goals of producing economically efficient transactions and facilitating “best execution.” We find marked changes between June 2000, when quotes are often ignored, and January 2002, when the market more closely resembles a national market.
Invarient patterns in articulatory movements
Authors: Bonaventura Patrizia 
Published: March 2004

The purpose of the reported study is to discover an effective method of characterizing movement patterns of the crucial articulator as the function of an abstract syllable magnitude and the adjacent boundary, and at the same time to investigate effects of prosodic control on utterance organization. In particular, the speed of movement when a flesh point on the tongue blade or the lower lip crosses a selected position relative to the occlusion plane is examined. The time of such crossing provides an effective measure of syllable timing and syllable duration according to previous work. In the present work, using a very limited vocabulary with only a few consonants and one vowel as the key speech materials, effects of contrastive emphasis on demisyllabic movement patterns were studied. The theoretical framework for this analysis is the C/D model of speech production in relation to the concept of an invariant part of selected articulatory movements. The results show evidence in favor of the existence of “iceberg” patterns, but a linear dependence of slope on the total excursion of the demisyllabic movement, instead of the approximate constancy of the threshold crossing speed as suggested in the original proposal of the iceberg, has been found. Accordingly, a revision of the original concept of iceberg, seems necessary. This refinement is consistent with the C/D model assumption on “prominence control” that the syllable magnitude determines the movement amplitude, accompanying directly related syllable duration change. In this assumption, the movement of a consonantal component should also be proportional to syllable magnitude. The results suggests, however, systematic outliers deviating from the linear dependence of movement speed on excursion. This deviation may be caused by the effect of the immediately following boundary, often referred to as phrase-final elongation.
Thesis advisor: Osamu Fujimura
Copies of this thesis written in English can be obtained from
An analytic model for acoustic scattering from an impedance cylinder placed normal to an impedance plane
Authors: Swearingen Michelle E. 
Published: March 2004

An analytic model, developed in cylindrical coordinates, is described for the scattering of a spherical wave off a semi-infinite reight cylinder placed normal to a ground surface. The motivation for the research is to have a model with which one can simulate scattering from a single tree and which can be used as a fundamental element in a model for estimating the attenuation in a forest comprised of multiple tree trunks. Comparisons are made to the plane wave case, the transparent cylinder case, and the rigid and soft ground cases as a method of theoretically verifying the model for the contemplated range of model parameters. Agreement is regarded as excellent for these benchmark cases. Model sensitivity to five parameters is also explored. An experiment was performed to study the scattering from a cylinder normal to a ground surface. The data from the experiment is analyzed with a transfer function method to yield frequency and impulse responses, and calculations based on the analytic model are compared to the experimental data.
Thesis advisor: David C. Swanson
Copies of this thesis written in English can be obtained from
AUGMENTATION OF SINGULARITIES OF SMOOTH MAPPINGS
Authors: HOUSTON KEVIN 
Published: March 2004

Augmentation is a process which produces a new singular map from combining a singular map and a hypersurface singularity. This notion has important applications to the classification and topological study of singularities because the properties of an augmentation can be described by those of its constituent parts. A short proof of an earlier result on a bound for the [Formula: see text]-codimension of an augmentation is given, but which is now also shown to hold for smooth real maps. For certain singularities a condition is given to detect when a map is an augmentation. This gives a process similar to that in the Splitting lemma for hypersurface singularities.
ON THE DENSITY OF HAUSDORFF DIMENSIONS OF BOUNDED TYPE CONTINUED FRACTION SETS: THE TEXAN CONJECTURE
Authors: JENKINSON OLIVER 
Published: March 2004

Given a non-empty finite subset A of the natural numbers, let EA denote the set of irrationals x∈[0,1] whose continued fraction digits lie in A. In general, EA is a Cantor set whose Hausdorff dimension dim (EA) is between 0 and 1. It is shown that the set [Formula: see text] intersects [0,1/2] densely. We then describe a method for accurately computing dimensions dim (EA), and employ it to investigate numerically the way in which [Formula: see text] intersects [1/2,1]. These computations tend to support the conjecture, first formulated independently by Hensley, and by Mauldin & Urbański, that [Formula: see text] is dense in [0,1]. In the important special case A={1,2}, we use our computational method to give an accurate approximation of dim (E{1,2}), improving on the one given in [18].
Constructing a Gazebo: Supporting Teamwork in a Tightly Coupled, Distributed Task in Virtual Reality
Authors: Roberts David , Wolff Robin , Otto Oliver , Steed Anthony 
Published: March 2004

Many tasks require teamwork. Team members may work concurrently, but there must be some occasions of coming together. Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow distributed teams to come together across distance to share a task. Studies of CVE systems have tended to focus on the sense of presence or copresence with other people. They have avoided studying close interaction between us-ers, such as the shared manipulation of objects, because CVEs suffer from inherent network delays and often have cumbersome user interfaces. Little is known about the ef-fectiveness of collaboration in tasks requiring various forms of object sharing and, in particular, the concurrent manipu-lation of objects. This paper investigates the effectiveness of supporting teamwork among a geographically distributed group in a task that requires the shared manipulation of objects. To complete the task, users must share objects through con-current manipulation of both the same and distinct at-tributes. The effectiveness of teamwork is measured in terms of time taken to achieve each step, as well as the impression of users. The effect of interface is examined by comparing various combinations of walk-in cubic immersive projection technology (IPT) displays and desktop devices.
The Meanings of a Star: Interpreting Music Fans' Reviews
Authors: Vannini Phillip 
Published: March 2004

This article both elaborates on and empirically supports Norman Denzin's thesis on the political aesthetics of interpretation. Through a reading of consumer reviews, I discuss both the image and the music of the contemporary pop star Avril Lavigne by combining analytic tools derived from dramaturgy and social semiotics. Specifically, I present consumer reviews of Avril Lavigne's public persona as interpretive acts that decode the practices of production, distribution, and consumption of her alleged subcultural authenticity. I discuss the importance of understanding interpretation as a practice of cultural resistance against the pervasive force of consumerist ideologies and hegemonic mass media discourses. In addition, I reflect on the usefulness of a symbolic interactionist approach to a cultural studies based on Peircean semiotics and Goffmanian dramaturgy.We are losing control of the very means of cultural production itself. … More and more culture becomes an adjunct of marketing, or of the bureaucratic ethos, or of both.—C. Wright Mills (1963:226)
Selection of a diversionary field and other habitats by large grazing birds in a landscape managed for agriculture and wetland biodiversity
Authors: Nilsson Lovisa , Månsson Johan , Elmberg Johan , Liljebäck Niklas , Tombre Ingunn 
Published: January 2024

Abstract

Several populations of cranes, geese, and swans are thriving and increasing in modern agricultural landscapes. Abundant populations are causing conservation conflicts, as they may affect agricultural production and biodiversity negatively.

Management strategies involving provisioning of attractive diversionary fields where birds are tolerated can be used to reduce negative impact to growing crops. To improve such strategies, knowledge of how the birds interact with the landscape and respond to current management interventions is key.

We used GPS locations from tagged common cranes (Grus grus) and greylag geese (Anser anser) to assess how they use and select differentially managed habitats, such as diversionary fields to decrease impact on agriculture and wetlands protected for biodiversity conservation.

Our findings show a high probability of presence of common cranes and greylag geese in the protected area and in the diversionary field, but also on arable fields, potentially causing negative impact on agricultural production and wetland biodiversity.

We outline recommendations for how to improve the practice of diversionary fields and complementary management to reduce risk of negative impact of large grazing birds in landscapes tailored for both conservation and conventional agriculture.
The Role of
SHANK3
/PROSAP2 in the Pathophysiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Phelan–Mcdermid Syndrome
Authors: Piercesare Grimaldi , Francisco Cammarata‐Scalisi , Enrico S Bertini , Colin E Willoughby , Julian Nevado , Antonino Morabito , Michele Callea 
Published: January 2024

Abstract

Phelan–McDermid syndrome (PMS) is a rare genetic disorder caused by a deletion or mutations of the
SHANK3/
PROSAP2 gene, located on the terminal end of chromosome 22. The SHANK3/PROSAP2 gene produces a protein called
SHANK3
, which is crucial for the development and function of synapses in the brain. Loss or dysfunction of
SHANK3/
PROSAP2 leads to disruptions in synaptic function and plasticity. Individuals with PMS often experience developmental delay, intellectual disability and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including impaired communication and social interaction, repetitive behaviours and restricted interests. This review explores the role of
SHANK3/
PROSAP2 in the pathogenesis of PMS and ASD, which may contribute to the cognitive and behavioural deficits seen in affected individuals. However, recent advances in understanding the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms of PMS have led to the development of potential therapeutic targets, such as drugs that enhance synaptic function and behavioural therapies that target social communication and adaptive skills. Further research is needed to better understand the complex molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying PMS and ASD, and to develop effective treatments for these disorders.

Key Concepts

SHANK3/
PROSAP2 gene produces a synaptic protein whose mutation causes both in autism and philanthropy McDermid syndrome.

SHANK3/
PROSAP2 is involved in synaptic transmission and functional connectivity.

Recently developed mutant monkeys for
SHANK3/
PROSAP2 may open invaluable insight into research of autism spectrum disorder and Phelan McDermid syndrome.
Evolution of Hitchhiking Interactions in Microbes
Authors: Uppal Gurdip , Vural Dervis Can 
Published: January 2024

Abstract

Many microbes migrate from unfavourable environments to more favourable ones. They will, for example, seek out nutrients, prey, and hosts or avoid toxins, heat or salinity. However, motility also incurs metabolic costs, and accordingly, for many microbes, it is not cost‐effective to be motile. Interestingly, many nonmotile microbes have been observed to utilize their motile neighbours to ‘hitchhike’ to more favourable environments. Microbial hitchhiking seems quite widespread and has potential impacts on ecological community function and formation. The ecology and evolution of hitchhiking appears to be varied, with interactions ranging from parasitic to mutualistic.

Key Concepts

Cell motility is crucial for many key functions in microbial populations but comes with metabolic costs and not all microbes possess the machinery to be motile.

Four separate mechanisms of hitchhiking in microbes have been identified thus far. These are mechanical pushing by motile cells, direct attachment to cell bodies, direct attachment to bacterial flagella and internal transport by cells.

Microbial hitchhiking can be parasitic, commensal, or mutualistic.

Microbial hitchhiking can also be mutually beneficial, where both motile and nonmotile counterparts benefit, for example in combining functions such as antibiotic resistance.

Microbial hitchhiking can have important ecological implications, including influencing the composition and function of microbial communities and the spread of pathogens.

Many motile counterparts in hitchhiking interactions use chemotaxis to move towards more favourable environments.
Slime Moulds
Authors: Blanton Richard L 
Published: January 2024

Abstract

Slime moulds are organisms that feed and grow like protozoa but reproduce like fungi. No single taxonomic group encompasses all slime moulds. Instead, the slime mould habit has arisen multiple times across a number of different groups. Their unusual name belies the importance of some species as experimental research organisms. The cellular slime mould
Dictyostelium discoideum
has provided significant insights into cell differentiation and pattern formation, cell motility, cell signalling, gene expression and cell adhesion and in recent years has also been employed in studies of the mechanism of action of pharmaceuticals, the cellular effects of pathogenic microorganisms and the evolution of social behaviour. The plasmodial slime mould
Physarum polycephalum
has provided insights into cytoplasmic streaming and control of nuclear division and more recently has been employed in practical and theoretical studies of path finding. The comparative genomics of the multicellular slime moulds has the potential to provide insights into the evolution of multicellularity.

Key Concepts

‘Slime moulds’ is a descriptive term rather than a systematic category.

The slime mould habit of protozoan‐like feeding stages alternating with fungus‐like reproductive stages has arisen independently in a wide variety of microorganisms embracing three of the major supergroups of Eukaryotes.

The multicellular slime moulds include the well‐known social amoeba
Dictyostelium discoideum
, which has had broad application as a model research organism in the study of fundamental cellular processes.

The plasmodial slime moulds include
Physarum polycephalum
, which has been used as a model for studying fundamental cellular processes and has recently been used by physicists and computer scientists for network analysis and other studies.

Complete genome sequences are available for many of the multicellular slime moulds and their nonaggregative and nonfruiting amoebal relatives. This presents intriguing prospects for exploring the evolution of multicellularity using comparative genomics.