bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Responsiveness of the Problem Areas In Diabetes (PAID) questionnaire
Authors: Welch G. , Weinger K. , Anderson B. , Polonsky W. H. 
Published: March 2003

AbstractAim Responsiveness (sensitivity to change over time) is a key psychometric quality for an outcome measure. We examined the responsiveness of the Problem Areas In Diabetes (PAID) questionnaire, a measure of diabetes‐specific emotional distress.Methods PAID data were obtained from seven diabetes intervention studies following a literature search that included both published papers and conference abstracts. To estimate responsiveness we used two indices: (i) a statistical test (the dependent t‐test), and (ii) a commonly used effect size index (Cohen's d).Results Mean patient PAID scores improved from baseline to follow‐up for all seven studies. Specifically, t‐statistics ranged from t= 8.5 (P < 0.001) to t= 2.1 (P < 0.06). Effect size results ranged from 0.32 (i.e. small) for a disease management intervention to 0.65 (i.e. moderate) for an intensive medical/educational intervention.Conclusions Despite the pilot nature of the studies, the pattern of findings provided strong support for the responsiveness of the PAID. Information on responsiveness helps clinical researchers select measures, accurately estimate sample size to ensure adequate statistical power, and prioritize outcomes to be assessed.
Products of a managed landscape: non‐timber forest products in the parklands of the Bassila region, Benin
Authors: Schreckenberg Kathrin 
Published: March 2003

SummaryThe sustainable use of non‐timber forest products (NTFPs) is often put forward as a means for ensuring the conservation of forest vegetation types. This paper presents the results of research carried out in the savanna zone of Benin, which highlights the fact that the majority of species yielding important NTFPs are, in fact, located in the fields and fallows. The paper describes how the presence of villages affects the distribution of different vegetation types and how farmers selectively retain certain NTFP tree species, thereby creating a characteristic parkland landscape. It is suggested, however, that changes in the agricultural system and a gradual decline in the importance of NTFPs in people's lives will reduce the incentive for maintaining NTFP species and lead to the eventual loss of the parklands.
Evaluating interactions between soil drainage and seedling performance in a restoration of Pinus sylvestris woodland, Scotland
Authors: Crowell M. D. , Lane S. N. 
Published: March 2003

Abstract

This paper evaluates the role of soil drainage in tree seedling performance at a site being restored from Calluna vulgaris moorland to Pinus sylvestris woodland, in Glen Affric, Scotland. The investigation focuses on the relationships between height of planted seedlings, type of ground vegetation and drainage conditions.
Slope, aspect, and soil depth were assessed as potential surrogates for direct measures of soil drainage, all of which were derived from digital terrain data.
Six variables related to drainage were recorded at 58 seedling locations and used in a factor analysis to understand links between soil moisture conditions, topographic variables and soil depth characteristics.
Factor analysis generated two factors that accounted for 70.5% of the variance in the correlation matrix of these variables: Factor 1 correlated strongly with variables that controlled peat accumulation and Factor 2 correlated strongly with topographic controls upon drainage patterns.
These two factors explained a significant amount of the variance in height of the Pinus seedlings planted at these locations. Significant differences were found between the factor scores associated with different types of ground vegetation, as well as between the seedling heights observed at locations with different vegetation types.
Multiple regressions were developed that indicated that slope, aspect, and soil depth were significant as independent variables in models where soil moisture content and aerobic soil depth were the dependent variables.
The effect of 50 years of landscape change on species richness and community composition
Authors: Parody Jennifer M. , Cuthbert Francesca J. , Decker Ethan H. 
Published: March 2003

AbstractWe analysed a 50‐year dataset of avian species observations to determine how richness and community composition varied over a period of landscape‐scale environmental change. Our study area, northern lower Michigan, has experienced substantial land‐use and land‐cover change over time. Like much of the northern Midwest, it has shifted from a largely unpopulated, post‐logging shrubland to a moderately populated closed‐canopy forest. Such changes are generally expected to influence overall richness and community composition. We found that regional richness per year remained virtually unchanged over the study period. Year‐to‐year variation in species number was surprisingly low. Richness totals included vastly different species groups as the composition of the regional bird community changed substantially over time. Changes in the types of species present appear to reflect deterministic changes in habitat. The number of grassland and open‐habitat species decreased, for example, while species associated with older forests and urban habitats increased. Our results suggest that habitat changes at the landscape scale do not necessarily lead to changes in the number of species a region can support. Such changes, however, do appear to influence the types of species that will occupy a region, and can lead to substantial changes in community composition.
Integrating fluxes from heterogeneous vegetation
Authors: Woodward F. Ian , Lomas Mark R. 
Published: March 2003

AbstractThe vegetated landscape of Europe has been strongly impacted by human management to produce a heterogeneous patchwork of semi‐natural and agricultural vegetation varying over a wide range of spatial scales. A model is described for averaging vegetation fluxes from a landscape of forest and grassland into the planetary boundary layer (PBL). At a scale of 1 km, model simulations indicate that vegetation heterogeneity exerts little effect on the PBL and regional fluxes will be simple areal averages of the different vegetation types. Above 5 km the model simulates significant effects of different vegetation types on the whole PBL. Averaging fluxes to the regional scale will therefore need to consider explicitly the nature, extent and behaviour of different vegetation types.
River corridor plants (Stromtalpflanzen) in Central European lowland: a review of a poorly understood plant distribution pattern
Authors: Burkart Michael 
Published: March 2003

AbstractAim and locationIn Central European lowlands certain plant species grow mainly or exclusively in the corridors of large rivers. In German‐speaking plant geography, they are known as ‘Stromtalpflanzen’. The aim of this paper is to review the literature about definitions, explanations and species characteristics and to suggest future directions in research concerning this species group.ResultsA preliminary list contains 129 ecologically heterogeneous plant species. The mechanisms generating the peculiar distribution pattern may include hydrochory along river corridors, high levels of disturbance by water, variable water availability including inundation and summer drought, warm summers and high nutrient supply on alluvial soils. There is evidence from observational studies for all above mechanisms. However, none of them has been tested experimentally. Demographic data of river corridor plants are limited to very few species, including mainly invasive annuals (Artemisia annua,Bidens frondosa,Cuscuta campestris,Xanthium albinum) and annual (hemi)parasites (Cuscuta campestris,Melampyrum cristatum). Metapopulation studies do not exist to date for European species. Apart from their habitat requirements, river corridor plants were grouped according to their similarities in overall distribution pattern or their distribution within particular river corridors.Main conclusionsRiver corridor plants include a high proportion of threatened plant species. In order to preserve them, and in order to understand the mechanisms generating the peculiar distribution pattern, much more has to be known about their population biology and metapopulation dynamics.
Influences of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation on avian productivity in forests of the Pacific Northwest of North America
Authors: Nott M. Philip , Desante David F. , Siegel Rodney B. , Pyle Peter 
Published: March 2003

AbstractTo model the effects of global climate phenomena on avian population dynamics, we must identify and quantify the spatial and temporal relationships between climate, weather and bird populations. Previous studies show that in Europe, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) influences winter and spring weather that in turn affects resident and migratory landbird species. Similarly, in North America, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) of the Pacific Ocean reportedly drives weather patterns that affect prey availability and population dynamics of landbird species which winter in the Caribbean. Here we show that ENSO‐ and NAO‐induced seasonal weather conditions differentially affect neotropical‐ and temperate‐wintering landbird species that breed in Pacific North‐west forests of North America. For neotropical species wintering in western Mexico, El Niño conditions correlate with cooler, wetter conditions prior to spring migration, and with high reproductive success the following summer. For temperate wintering species, springtime NAO indices correlate strongly with levels of forest defoliation by the larvae of two moth species and also with annual reproductive success, especially among species known to prey upon those larvae. Generalized linear models incorporating NAO indices and ENSO precipitation indices explain 50–90% of the annual variation in productivity reported for 10 landbird species. These results represent an important step towards spatially explicit modelling of avian population dynamics at regional scales.
Body size increase in insular rodent populations: a role for predators?
Authors: Michaux Johan R. , De Bellocq Joëlle Goüy , Sarà Maurizio , Morand Serge 
Published: March 2003

AbstractInsular mammalian populations living in areas of small size are often characterized by a drastic change in body mass compared to related continental populations or species. Generally, small mammals (less than 100 g) evolve into giant forms while large mammals (up to 100 g) evolve into dwarf forms. These changes, coupled with changes in other life, behavioural, physiological or demographic traits are referred to generally as the insular syndrome. We tested in this study the relative contribution of three factors — area of island, numbers of competitor species and number of predator species — to changes in body size of the woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Our results, based on a comparative analysis using the phylogenetic independent contrasts method, indicate that the increase in body size is related both to the decrease of island size and to the lower number of predator species. A decrease of competitor species does not seem to have an important effect.
Climate change‐integrated conservation strategies
Authors: Hannah L. , Midgley G. F. , Millar D. 
Published: March 2003

ABSTRACTAim  Conservation strategies currently include little consideration of climate change. Insights about the biotic impacts of climate change from biogeography and palaeoecology, therefore, have the potential to provide significant improvements in the effectiveness of conservation planning. We suggest a collaboration involving biogeography, ecology and applied conservation. The resulting Climate Change‐integrated Conservation Strategies (CCS) apply available tools to respond to the conservation challenges posed by climate change.Location  The focus of this analysis is global, with special reference to high biodiversity areas vulnerable to climate change, particularly tropical montane settings.Methods  Current tools from climatology, biogeography and ecology applicable to conservation planning in response to climate change are reviewed. Conservation challenges posed by climate change are summarized. CCS elements are elaborated that use available tools to respond to these challenges.Results  Five elements of CCS are described: regional modelling; expanding protected areas; management of the matrix; regional coordination; and transfer of resources. Regional modelling uses regional climate models, biotic response models and sensitivity analysis to identify climate change impacts on biodiversity at a regional scale appropriate for conservation planning. Expansion of protected areas management and systems within the planning region are based on modelling results. Management of the matrix between protected areas provides continuity for processes and species range shifts outside of parks. Regional coordination of park and off‐park efforts allows harmonization of conservation goals across provincial and national boundaries. Finally, implementation of these CCS elements in the most biodiverse regions of the world will require technical and financial transfer of resources on a global scale.Main conclusions  Collaboration across disciplines is necessary to plan conservation responses to climate change adequately. Biogeography and ecology provide insights into the effects of climate change on biodiversity that have not yet been fully integrated into conservation biology and applied conservation management. CCS provide a framework in which biogeographers, ecologists and conservation managers can collaborate to address this need. These planning exercises take place on a regional level, driven by regional climate models as well as general circulation models (GCMs), to ensure that regional climate drivers such as land use change and mesoscale topography are adequately represented. Sensitivity analysis can help address the substantial uncertainty inherent in projecting future climates and biodiversity response.
Climate change and modelled biome representation in Canada's national park system: implications for system planning and park mandates
Authors: Scott Daniel , Malcolm Jay R. , Lemieux Christopher 
Published: March 2003

ABSTRACTAim  The study examined the potential for change in biome representation within Canada's national park system under multiple climate change scenarios and subsequent potential vulnerabilities in Parks Canada policy and planning frameworks.Location  The study was conducted for Canada's 39 national parks.Methods  The vegetation change scenarios were based on modelling results from the BIOME3 and MAPSS equilibrium process‐based global vegetation models (GVM), run with multiple doubled‐CO2 climate change scenarios. The six vegetation distribution scenarios were calculated at 0.5° latitude–longitude resolution and the boundaries of 39 national parks superimposed in a geographic information system (GIS). Park management plans and other planning documents were also reviewed as part of the analysis.Results  The proportional distribution of biomes in Canada's national park system was very similar (within 3% of area for each biome) using BIOME3 and MAPSS under the current climate. Regardless of the GVM and climate change scenario used, the modelling results suggest the potential for substantial change in the biome representation in Canada's national park system. In five of six vegetation scenarios, a novel biome type appeared in more than half of the national parks and greater than 50% of all vegetation grid boxes changed biome type. The proportional representation of tundra and taiga/tundra in the national park system declined in each of the vegetation scenarios, while more southerly biomes (temperate forests and savanna/woodland) increased (in some scenarios doubling to quadrupling). Results for boreal forest varied among the climate change scenarios. A range of potential vulnerabilities in existing policy and planning frameworks were identified, including the national park system plan, individual park objectives, and fire and exotic species management plans.Conclusions  Climate change represents an unprecedented challenge to Parks Canada and its ability to achieve its conservation mandate as presently legislated. Research is needed not only on ecosystem responses to climate change, but also on the capacity of conservation systems and agencies to adapt to climate change.
Robustness of the maximum‐likelihood‐binomial approach for linkage analysis of quantitative trait loci with non‐normal phenotypic data
Authors: Alcaïs Alexandre , Abel Laurent 
Published: March 2003

AbstractIntroduction Model‐free linkage studies are increasingly used to investigate the genetic factors implicated in complex quantitative traits because they do not require any specification of the underlying genetic model. However, the term model‐free does not imply that no assumption is introduced by the corresponding statistical methods. In particular, the widely used variance components approaches assume multivariate normality of the phenotypic distribution and it has been shown that violation of this normality hypothesis could lead to large inflation of the type I error. In this paper, we assess the robustness of the recently developed sibship‐oriented Maximum‐Likelihood‐Binomial (MLB) method for genetic model‐free linkage analysis in the context of several types of non‐normal phenotypic data using a large simulation study.Simulation study Under the hypothesis of no linkage at the marker locus under study, 20 000 replicates of family samples including 100 or 500 independent sib‐pairs were simulated considering four different designs that lead to non‐normal phenotypic data: (1) presence of a major gene not linked to the studied marker, (2) gene–environment interaction, (3) analysis of a binary phenotype, and (4) extreme sampling. Further, three levels of residual sib–sib correlation were considered.Results and discussion For each simulation design the empirical type I errors were consistent with their asymptotic expectations showing that the MLB approach is insensitive to non‐normal phenotypic distribution whatever the mechanism underlying this non‐normality. Therefore, the MLB method should be an attractive alternative method for model‐free linkage analysis of QTL, especially for investigators who do not want to worry about the validity of asymptotic thresholds when performing their analyses.
Species concepts and speciation of fishes: concluding remarks
Authors: R Stauffer Jay , Kocovsky Patrick M , Ruffing Renea A 
Published: March 2003

AbstractThe definition of the species category has stimulated more debate than perhaps any other topic in the biological sciences. There are currently more than 22 different species concepts and the debate continues on which concepts apply to all organisms, which concepts are operational and which concepts should be used in specific circumstances. The first major division of the types of concepts depends on whether one views species as constructs that exist for ordering biodiversity and information retrieval (i.e. classes), or views species as ontological individuals that exist in nature. If species are categories that can be defined, then theoretically, a single species can arise more than once in different places or at different times. If, on the other hand, species are individuals, then they are historical events, monophyletic and each species is unique.
Neurorehabilitation: a bridge between basic science and clinical practice
Authors: Kesselring J. 
Published: March 2003

A true paradigm shift or revolution of thinking is taking place in the field of neurology. Earlier, it was regarded as the science of exact diagnosis of incurable illnesses, according to the resigned dogma that damage to the central nervous system could not be repaired: “Once development is complete, the sources of growth and regeneration of axons and dendrites are irretrievably lost. In the adult brain the nerve paths are fixed and immutable: everything can die, nothing can be regenerated” (Cajal, 1928). Even then one could have countered this with what holds today: “Rehabilitation does not take place in the test tube!”, and one would have been supported only a short time later by a most authoritative source, if one had read and quoted what the professor of neurology and neurosurgery in Breslau, Otfried Foerster, wrote in a 100‐page article about therapeutic exercises that appeared in the Handbuch der Neurologie. From his introduction, only three sentences are quoted, which illustrate his opinion of the importance of therapeutic exercises and are closer to our views of brain functions today (Foerster, 1936):There is no doubt that most motor disturbances caused by lesions of the nervous system are more or less completely compensated as a result of a tendency inherent to the organism to carry out as expediently as possible the tasks of which it is capable under normal circumstances, using all the forces still available to it with the remaining undamaged parts of the nervous system, even following injury to its substance. This happens spontaneously, when neither a reversal of the noxa nor a regeneration of the destroyed tissue is possible, simply by means of a reorganization of the remaining parts of the nervous system, which is not a machine composed of individual parts that stands still when one part fails; rather, it possesses an admirable plasticity and exhibits an astonishingly extensive adaptability, not only to changed external conditions but also to disruptions of its own substance. Therapeutic exercises influence the course of spontaneous restoration; they support it, strengthen it. Not infrequently, in fact, they actually set it in motion when the forces essential to restoration lie fallow and are not deployed by the organism.
Reliability of an Illness Severity Measure for Headache in A Population Sample of Migraine Sufferers
Authors: Stewart WF , Lipton RB , Simon D , Von Korff M , Liberman J 
Published: March 2003

Objectives: To examine the reliability and related measurement properties of an illness severity measure for headache derived from responses to a 16-item self-administered questionnaire, the Headache Impact Questionnaire (HImQ), and to determine if there is support for combining measures of pain and disability into a single scaled measure of severity. Methods: A population-based sample of migraine headache sufferers completed the HImQ twice, an average of 38 days apart. The HImQ included questions about number of headaches in the last 3 months, headache duration, last headache, pain intensity (two questions), need for bedrest (two questions), disability in specific domains of activity (seven questions about interference with ability to work, do household chores, and engage in non-work activity), and symptoms (two questions). Results: Test-retest correlations of individual questions ranged from 0.65 to 0.93. In principal components analysis, a single factor with significant loading emerged. One measure of pain intensity (average pain score from 0 to 10) and items related to disability (i.e., missed days due to headache, and reduced effectiveness because of headache) in defined activity domains (work for pay, housework, nonwork activities) had the greatest weights on this single factor, supporting prior work on combining measures of pain and disability into a single scale. The HImQ score was derived as the sum of average pain intensity and total lost time in each of the three domains of activity, expressed as lost days. The latter was derived as the sum of actual missed days in each activity domain and reduced effectiveness day equivalents in each activity with a headache. The test-retest correlation was 0.77 for all eligible subjects and 0.85 when one influential outlier was removed. Cronbach's alpha was 0.83. Conclusions: The HImQ score, based on eight items, is a highly reliable and internally consistent measure of headache severity.