117,620 research outputs found

    Understanding earthworm - Collembola interactions and their importance for ecosystem processes needs consideration of species identity

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    Soil animals and their interactions exert strong effects on ecosystem processes, such as leaf litter decomposition and nitrogen (N) cycling, thereby contributing to ecosystem functioning and stability. The understanding of how and why certain species interact is important to predict the effect of soil animal communities on ecosystem processes. Species interactions are discussed as being facilitative, antagonistic or neutral. We investigated interactions between two earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris, Aporrectodea caliginosa) and two Collembola species (Heteromurus nitidus and Protaphorura armata), representing major soil decomposer taxa. The two earthworm species are representatives of the soil macrofauna, with L. terrestris living in permanent vertical burrows and feeding on leaf litter, and A. caliginosa living in non-permanent horizontal burrows and feeding predominantly on resources in organo-mineral soil. The Collembola species are representatives of the soil mesofauna, with H. nitidus predominantly colonizing the soil litter interface and feeding on litter associated resources, whereas P. armata colonizes deeper soil layers and mainly feeds on resources in organo-mineral soil. Therefore, the species were assumed to differ in two major traits, i.e. body size (macrofauna vs. mesofauna) and food microhabitat association ("litter-associated" vs. "soil-associated"). Mesocosms with natural forest floor containing one beech (Fagus sylvatica) sapling were set up and incubated in the laboratory for three months. N-15 labeled beech litter was added to follow the effect of detritivore animals on N cycling and N uptake by beech saplings. We hypothesized antagonistic interactions to dominate in species with similar body size or food microhabitat association via hampering the performance (biomass, abundance) of each other thereby reducing effects on leaf litter decomposition and N cycling. On the contrary, we expected species of different body size or food microhabitat association to facilitate each other's effects on ecosystem processes. In contrast to our expectation there was no clear relationship between similarity of body size or food microhabitat association and soil fauna effects on each other. Interactions between detritivores were not consensual with L. terrestris facilitating biomass gain of A. caliginosa, while its own biomass was reduced in presence of A. caliginosa. Additionally, N-15 incorporation into A. caliginosa and the two Collembola species decreased in presence of L. terrestris, irrespective of similarity of body size or food microhabitat association. Leaf litter decomposition was increased by L terrestris, while none of the other species affected litter decomposition. Generally, N-15 incorporation into beech saplings was significantly increased in presence of L. terrestris or H. nitidus, but reduced in two species treatments due to antagonistic interactions. Interestingly, it was increased if L. terrestris, A. caliginosa and P. armata were present together, indicating facilitative interactions between these species. The results suggest that soil fauna interactions mainly vary with the identity of species and community composition rather than with similarity of traits. This highlights the complexity of soil fauna interactions and the difficulty to predict their effects on ecosystem processes, such as litter decomposition and N cycling, in species rich communities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

    Square Dancing with the Stars to Enhance Dynamic Hirschman Linkages?

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    In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and time as a regional scientist. He points out scenery he found scintillating along the way, hoping that some may pick up the banner and chew on a few of the ideas for a while. He suggests a revisit to Albert O. Hirschman’s notion of key sectors and more empirical analysis related to Marcus Berliant’s and Masahisa Fujita’s notion of knowledge creation and transfer.Presidential Address, San Antonio, Texas, March 29, 2014 (53rd Meetings of the Southern Regional Science Association

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We 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

    Letter from unknown writer to Jesse L. Boyce

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    Letter to Jesse L. Boyce from unknown author (possibly Jack) about the investigation into the powder magazine located in the Grand Canyon. Some personal news is included in the letter such as the writer's marriage to the daughter of C.A. Taylor, former Supervisor of Cochise County

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We 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

    Light-controlled reversible modulation of frontier molecular orbital energy levels in trifluoromethylated diarylethenes

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    Among bistable photochromic molecules, diarylethenes (DAEs) possess the distinct feature that upon photoisomerization they undergo a large modulation of their pelectronic system, accompanied by a marked shift of the HOMO/LUMO energies and hence oxidation/reduction potentials. The electronic modulation can be utilized to remote-control charge-as well as energy-transfer processes and it can be transduced to functional entities adjacent to the DAE core, thereby regulating their properties. In order to exploit such photoswitchable systems it is important to precisely adjust the absolute position of their HOMO and LUMO levels and to maximize the extent of the photoinduced shifts of these energy levels. Here, we present a comprehensive study detailing how variation of the substitution pattern of DAE compounds, in particular using strongly electron-accepting and chemically stable trifluoromethyl groups either in the periphery or at the reactive carbon atoms, allows for the precise tuning of frontier molecular orbital levels over a broad energy range and the generation of photoinduced shifts of more than 1 eV. Furthermore, the effect of different DAE architectures on the transduction of these shifts to an adjacent functional group is discussed. Whereas substitution in the periphery of the DAE motif has only minor implications on the photochemistry, trifluoromethylation at the reactive carbon atoms strongly disturbs the isomerization efficiency. However, this can be overcome by using a nonsymmetrical substitution pattern or by combination with donor groups, rendering the resulting photoswitches attractive candidates for the construction of remote-controlled functional systems

    Sarah L. Blum Author Visit - Warrior Nurse: PTSD and Healing

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    Hear Sarah L. Blum, author of Women Under Fire: Abuse in the Military, discuss her newest book, Warrior Nurse: PTSD and Healing followed by a Q&A and book signing. Sarah L. Blum is a decorated Vietnam veteran who served as an operating room nurse during the intense fighting of 1967. In recognition of her service, she was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Sponsored by CWU Veterans Center and CWU Libraries.https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/libraryevents/1252/thumbnail.jp

    Lillian L. Lambert, Author, Speaker, and Entrepreneur

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    Lillian L. Lambert, Author, Speaker, and Entrepreneu
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