1,721,749 research outputs found
Infochemical use in Brassica-insect interactions : a phenotypic manipulation approach to induced plant defences
No full textPlants have developed a range of strategies to defend themselves against herbivore attack. Defences can be constitutive, i.e. always present independent of attack, or induced, i.e. only elicited when the plant is under attack. In this thesis, I focused on induced chemical defence responses of plants and the response of associated insects to these phenotypic changes in plants. Herbivore attack is known to induce chemical defences in Brassicaceous plants. Using several elicitors and inhibitors of different steps of the signalling pathways underlying herbivore-induced plant responses, I studied how induced infochemicals affect interactions with associated insects. Jasmonic acid (JA) is a key plant hormone in the octadecanoid signalling pathway known to be involved in herbivore-induced plant defences. Application of JA can induce plant responses that are similar, although not identical, to herbivore feeding. Two specialist herbivores of Brassicaceous plants, the butterflies Pieris rapae and P. brassicae, preferred to oviposit on non-induced plants over JA-induced plants. Development of P. rapae caterpillars was shown to be reduced, suggesting that oviposition avoidance on JA-induced plants is adaptive. The levels of glucosinolates, secondary metabolites of Brassicaceous plants that are used by Pieris butterflies as oviposition stimulants, could not explain the observed oviposition preference of the butterflies. JA-induced changes in the plants also affected members of the third trophic level. Volatile emission of JA-induced plants attracted parasitoid wasps to the plants. Parasitoid attraction to JA-induced plants was shown to depend on dose and induction time. However, using JA to induce phenotypic changes had effects different from those induced by herbivores, both chemically and ecologically. Volatile emission of JA-induced and herbivore-induced plants differed; whereas JA-induced plants emitted larger amounts of volatiles, the parasitoids preferred herbivore-induced plants over JA-treated ones. Early events in plant defence responses, involved in attacker recognition, are damage-induced modulations of ion channel activities resulting in ion imbalances. The fungal elicitor alamethicin, an ion channel-forming peptide mixture, was used to mimic early steps in defence responses. Alamethicin treatment increased attractiveness of plants to parasitoid wasps. Although volatile emission of alamethicin-treated plants was much lower, they were equally attractive as JA-treated plants. This indicates that quality rather than quantity of induced plant volatile blends is important to parasitoids. Besides chemical elicitation of herbivore-induced responses, which is a widely applied approach, plant defence responses can also be chemically inhibited. This provides the opportunity to inhibit the rate of specific enzymatic steps in a signal-transduction pathway. Furthermore, visual cues associated with feeding damage can be present (and similar) in control- and inhibitor-treated plants. Phenidone is a compound that inhibits lipoxygenase, an enzyme catalyzing an early step in the octadecanoid pathway. Parasitoid attraction was reduced when the plants were treated with phenidone before infestation. Also herbivore oviposition preference was shown to be affected by inhibition of this signalling pathway. Herbivores can differ in their oviposition preferences. I studied two specialist herbivores with different oviposition preferences: Pieris brassicae avoids oviposition on herbivore-induced plants, whereas Plutella xylostella prefers to oviposit on Pieris-infested plants. I showed that these preferences have a chemical basis and are dependent on octadecanoid signalling, since treatment with the lipoxygenase inhibitor phenidone eliminated herbivore-induced oviposition avoidance or preference. Thus far, most of the studies on induced plant defences have been done with vegetative plants. However, since reproduction and defence are both processes that require energy and nutrients, this could result in a trade-off. Herbivore feeding on leaves, flowers or roots is known to affect pollinator visitation, but the mechanisms mediating this change have not been addressed. Effects of induction with JA on nectar secretion and pollinator visitation to flowers were investigated. JA-induced plants secreted less nectar, but the sugar concentrations did not change. Also visitation of honeybees and syrphid flies did not change upon JA induction. These results show the complexity of induced plant defence responses and the variety of behavioural responses of insects on different trophic levels. Combining the phenotypic manipulation approach to induced plant defences, as used in this thesis, with molecular genetic techniques and building on recent developments in plant biochemistry provides a promising way forward towards enhanced understanding of the intricate interactions between plants and insects. <br/
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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