1,721,045 research outputs found

    Development of ergosterol, microbial biomass C, N, and P after steaming as a result of sucrose addition, and Sinapis alba cultivation

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    A pot experiment was carried out to monitor the recovery of a steaming-reduced microbial biomass (C, N, and P) and fungal ergosterol by sucrose addition. The second objective was to investigate the recovery of a steaming-reduced microbial biomass by white mustard (Sinapis alba) cultivation and its interactions with microbial residues, freshly formed from sucrose addition. Thirty days after steaming, the soil microbial biomass C and N was still significantly reduced by 80%, leading to a rather constant microbial biomass C/N ratio around 7 throughout the experiment. The steaming-induced decreases of microbial biomass P and ergosterol were only roughly 50%, leading to a decrease in the microbial biomass C/P ratio and an increase in the ergosterol-to-microbial biomass C ratio. Sucrose addition led to a 25% reduction in the ergosterol-to-microbial biomass C ratio. Mustard cultivation had significant positive effects on microbial biomass C, N, P, and ergosterol, but the effects were smaller than those of sucrose addition. Cultivating mustard had no significant effects on the C loss or on the incorporation of sucrose C into the microbial biomass. In contrast, the application of sucrose led to a significant decrease in the mustard shoot biomass and especially in the mustard root biomass.Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH

    Interactions of mustard plants and soil microorganisms after application of sugarcane filter cake and pea residues to an Andosol

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    In a pot experiment using a strongly P-fixing Andosol from Nicaragua, the effects of sugarcanefilter cake application on the growth of white mustard (Sinapis alba L.) were compared with those of 13C-labeled pea residues. The application of pea residues led to a 50% increase and the application of filter cake to a 30% decrease in soil organic matterderived microbial biomass C compared with the control. In contrast, the application of filter cake resulted in a four times higher content of substrate-derived microbial biomass C than that of pea residues. The application of organic substrates generally increased microbial biomass N. Mustard growth led to significant increases in microbial biomass P in the control, but also in the organic-amendment treatments, which always resulted in decreased microbial biomass C : P ratios. Mustard growth also led to increased contents of Bray-1-extractable P, but this increase was only significant in the filter cake treatment. The application of pea residues had no effect on the yield of shoot C, but a positive effect on the yield of root C in comparison with the nonamended control. In contrast, the application of filter cake significantly depressed yields of shoot C and root C, due to N immobilization, presumably due to the high concentration of lignin.Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; DAA

    Optimisation of amino sugar quantification by HPLC in soil and plant hydrolysates

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    Amino sugars are increasingly used as indicators for the accumulation of microbial residues in soil and plant material. A reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method was improved for the simultaneous determination of muramic acid, mannosamine, glucosamine and galactosamine in soil and plant hydrolysates via ortho-phthaldialdehyde (OPA) pre-column derivatisation and fluorescence detection. The retention time was reduced, and the separation of muramic acid and mannosamine was optimised by modifying the mobile phase. The effects of excitation wavelength, OPA reaction time, tetrahydrofuran concentration and pH value of the mobile phase on the amino sugar separation were tested. Quantification limits were in the range of 0.13 to 0.90 mu g ml(-1). No interferences exist from amino acids or other primary amines, occurring in soil and plant hydrolysates.German Research Foundation (DFG

    Sources of heavy metals and their long-term effects on microbial C, N and P relationships in soil

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    The effects of heavy metals (Zn, Pb, and Cu) on microbial biomass C, N, and P were assessed in soils contaminated over a wide range by sewage sludge, exhaust dust deposition of a lead factory and river sediments of mining residues. Microbial biomass C, N, and P did not show any clear heavy metal effect related to soil dry weight. Also the ratios of microbial biomass C/N and biomass C/P remained unaffected by heavy metals. The ratios of microbial biomass C/soil organic C, biomass N/total N, and biomass P/total P were all negatively affected by increasing concentrations of Zn, Pb, and Cu as detected by a source-specific analysis of covariance using the different heavy metal fractions as covariate. Negative effects of Zn on the ratios microbial biomass C/soil organic C and biomass N/total N increased with increasing metal solubility in the order: (X-ray fluorescence analysis) XFA-detectable < HNO3 < EDTA << NH4NO3-extractable Zn. The Zn effects on the microbial biomass N/total N were always smaller than those on the microbial biomass C/soil organic C ratio. The same was true for all effects of the Pb and Cu fractions on these two ratios. For this reason, the deposition of highly soluble Zn and Pb by exhaust dust has the most negative effects, although sediments contained the maximum total burden of Zn and Pb. All fractions of Zn, Pb, and Cu had similar negative effects on the microbial biomass P/total P ratio, although the NH4NO3-extractable fraction again showed the most pronounced effects

    Folio

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    Contents are in Urdu and Punjabi onlyProfessor Dr Muhammad Rehan Siddiqui (Principal). before the content

    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

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

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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

    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
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