90,536 research outputs found

    Taxonomy, phylogenetic and biogeographical relationships of African grassland Francolins (Genus: Scleroptila)

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    Bibliography: leaves 23-28.The potential for using a combination of molecular and whole-organismal data has opened up new avenues for avian taxonomy, phylogenetics and biogeography. Such a multifaceted approach is used here to identify diagnosable taxa within the Orange River Francolin Scleroptila levaillanloides species complex and resolve evolutionary relationships between these taxa and other mono-and polytypic forms within the Red-winged Group of francolins (= genus Scleroplila sensli lalo). Mitochondrial cytochrome-b DNA sequence data (±250 b.p.) from 50 individuals and 19 morphological characters extracted from reports in published literature were employed to achieve these aims. These characters were analysed separately and also in combination using maximum parsimony (DNA sequences and organismal data), maximum likelihood (DNA sequences) and distance (DNA sequences) analyses. Monophyly of the Red-winged Group plus the Ring-necked Francolin Dendroperdix slreptophorus was supported by all the analyses (bootstrap support ranged from 50%-94%) except distance analysis. The Orange River Francolin complex was found to be non-monophyletic. Two distinct clades were identified, one comprising taxa from southwestern and the other from northeastern Africa. Morphological analysis yielded a distinct clade of the southwestern Orange River Francolin. The other polytypic species and assemblages thereof show poor resolution. The results of this study clearly demonstrate a need for further assessment of the taxonomic status of Scleroptila spp. and their phylogenetic relationships

    Interactive effects of losing key grazers and ecosystem engineers vary with environmental context

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    Loss of biodiversity may cause significant changes to ecosystem structure and functioning. Evidence from long-term in situ removal experiments is rare but important in determining the effects of biodiversity loss against a background of environmental variation. Limpets and mussels are thought to be important in controlling community structure on wave-exposed shores in the UK: limpets as key grazers, mussels as ecosystem engineers. A long-term factorial removal experiment revealed interactive effects that varied between 2 shores in SW England. At one site (Harlyn), removing limpets caused a significant shift in community structure, but where limpets were lost, the presence or absence of mussels made little difference. Where limpets were present, however, the removal of mussels changed the structure and variability of the community. At the other site (Polzeath), the loss of mussels caused significant changes in community structure, and limpets played a less important role. At Harlyn, fucoid algae were abundant throughout the year. There were fewer algae at Polzeath, and cover was dominated by the summer bloom of ephemerals. At Harlyn, the limpets played a major role in controlling algae, but their effects were mediated by the presence of mussels. Other grazers were not able to fulfil their role. At Polzeath, mussels were far more important, and ephemeral algae grew on them regardless of the presence or loss of limpets. These findings emphasise the need to assess spatial and temporal variation in the effects of biodiversity loss and the importance of interactive effects of loss of multiple species from different functional groups

    Comparison of the effects of using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool versus informal appraisal in assessing health research: a randomised trial

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    Background: In systematic reviews, evidence-based practice, and journal clubs critical appraisal tools are used to rate research papers. However, little evidence exists on whether the critical appraisal tool, subject matter knowledge, or research design knowledge affect the appraisal of research papers. Methods: A match paired randomised trial was conducted in August/September 2010 in the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Molecular Science, James Cook University, Australia. Ten participants in total were randomly assigned to two groups using either an informal appraisal of research (IA group) or the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT group), a general critical appraisal tool. Participant independently appraised five research papers, where each paper had a different research design. The scores allocated to the papers by each group were analysed. Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient for absolute agreement was 0.76 for the IA group and 0.88 for the CCAT group. The G study showed that in the IA group 24% of variance in scores was attributable to either the rater or paper × rater interactions whereas this was 12% in the CCAT group. Analysis of covariance showed that there were statistically significant results in the IA group for subject matter knowledge (F(1,18) = 7.03, p < 0.05 1 tailed, partial η² = 0.28) and rater (F(4,18) = 4.57, p < 0.05 1 tailed, partial η² = 0.50). Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient also showed a significant weak positive relationship (τ = 0.38, p = 0.03) between total score and subject matter knowledge for the IA group. Discussion: The Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool was more reliable than an informal appraisal of the research papers. In the IA group, there were significant effects for rater and subject matter knowledge, whereas the CCAT almost eliminated the rater effect and no subject matter knowledge effect was apparent. There was no research design knowledge effect in either group. Conclusions: The CCAT provided much better score reliability and should help readers with different levels and types of knowledge to reach similar conclusions about a research paper

    Turbulence modulation in particle laden homogeneous shear flow: Exact Regularized Point Particle method

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    This contribution presents a first evaluation of a new approach, dubbed the Exact Regularized Point Particle (ERPP) method [Gualtieri et al., Exact regularized point particle method for multi-phase flows in the two-way coupling regime, arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.6969], designed to model the modulation of turbulence by hundred thousands of small inertial particles. The approach overcomes some intrinsic difficulties which arise in some circumstances in available approaches like, e.g., the Particle In Cell (PIC) method introduced by Crowe and coworkers since 1977. Numerical results concerning a homogeneous shear flow at moderate values of the Reynolds number laden with hundred thousand of small inertial particles are discussed documenting the turbulence modification in the so-called two-way coupling regime, in a range of control parameters unaccessible to the available approaches

    Stage actress Eileen Crowe.

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    Stage actress Eileen Crowe. From the back: "Eileen Crowe was born in Dublin and joined the Theatre in 1921. She was one of thsoe beginners of whom one said at once, 'She's an actress'. She has a beautiful clear speaking voice whihc she loves to disguise and cover over with the accent of the Dublin slums or with some country accent. Her range is very extensive; compare her 'Juno' with her 'Mrs Alcock' - in one she is a Dublin slum-mother, in the other an English lady in an Irish countryhouse. Before she came to the Abbey, she used to act in school plays 'wearing beards and things', as she says, but all her training has been in the Abbey Theatre, though she once deserted it and toured for some months in 'Peg O' My Heart'. She is married to Mr. F. J. McCormick."To order a reproduction, inquire about permissions, or for information about prices see: http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/services/reproduction/reproduction Please cite the Order NumberScanned at 600ppi with an Epson 20000 flatbed scanner. Image then rotated, cropped, level-adjusted, and sharpened using Photoshop CS3. Converted to a JPEG2000 image upon ingest into CONTENTdm

    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

    [Newspaper Clipping: Author Claims Evidence of Second JFK Assassin #1]

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    Newspaper article titled "Author Claims Evidence of Second JFK Assassin." The article states that author Richard J. Whalen concluded "that there is circumstantial evidence to support the theory of a second assassin in the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.

    Also By The Same Author: AKTiveAuthor, a Citation Graph Approach to Name Disambiguation

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    The desire for definitive data and the semantic web drive for inference over heterogeneous data sources requires co-reference resolution to be performed on those data. In particular, name disambiguation is required to allow accurate publication lists, citation counts and impact measures to be determined. This paper describes a graph-based approach to author disambiguation on large-scale citation networks. Using self-citation, co-authorship and document source analyses, AKTiveAuthor clusters papers, achieving precision of 0.997 and recall of 0.818 over a test group of eight surname clusters

    John F. Kennedy telegram to Roosevelt

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    Jersey Homesteads (later the Borough of Roosevelt) was established in the 1930s as an agro-industrial cooperative community. It was established specifically for urban Jewish garment workers, many of whom had emigrated from Europe. President John F. Kennedy sent a telegram to the citizens of Roosevelt, New Jersey, apologizing for not being able to attend the memorial dedication in honor of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Jersey Homesteads became Roosevelt in 1945 in honor of the president.) President Kennedy expressed his gratitude to the people of Roosevelt for constructing the memorial, and commented that it will serve as a constant reminder of Roosevelt's good works

    Logarithmic variance profiles and the corresponding f-1 spectra of temperature fluctuations in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

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    We report experimental results for the temperature variance 2(z) and the corresponding frequency spectra P(f) in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a cylindrical sample of aspect ratioT= D/L = 1:00 (D = 1:12 m is the diameter and L = 1:12 m the height). The measurements were conducted in the Rayleigh-number range 1011 < Ra < 1:35 1014 and Pr ' 0:8. For Ra = 1:35x1014, 2(z) could be described well by a logarithmic dependence on the vertical position z in a range of z 1 < z < z 2 with z 1 ' 70 and z 2 = 0:1L. Here L=(2Nu) is the thickness of a thin thermal sublayer adjacent to the horizontal plate where the heat flux (denoted by the Nusselt number Nu) is carried mostly by thermal diffusion. In the log layer, we found that the temperature spectra had a significant frequency range over which P(f) f with close to 1. As Ra decreased, increased so that the log layer became thinner. At Ra = 2:05 1011, z 2 < z 1 and therefore there was no range for a log layer. Correspondingly, the temperature spectrum near the horizontal plate did not have the f1 scaling form either
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