1. Improving the mechanistic basis of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships requires a better understanding of how functional traits drive the dynamics of populations. For example, environmental disturbances or grazing may increase synchronization of functionally similar species, whereas functionally different species may show independent dynamics, because of different responses to the ...

Q: How long w i l l i t be before this rou nd o f dow nsiz ing is completed? A: What you arc seeing now is the be g inn ing 'o f the second wave o f downsizing, w h ich really was formalized by the revo lt in Iran. We already had started on the downsiz­ ing. The j cars had already been en­ gineered. We increased the capacity o f those cars — we changed all the plans at that point. W e'll start ...

Single heavy atoms supported on thin carbon film were first imaged by Crewe, Wall and Langmore with their dark-field STEM. This glimpse into a hitherto invisible world we owe undeniably to Crewe's vision and determination, and to his gift to electrify, engage and encourage talented students. Since this successful event happened during my sabbatical stay in Crewe's group, the editors of this mem...

Entity matching that finds records referring to the same entity is an important operation in data cleaning and integration. Existing studies usually use a given similarity function to quantify the similarity of records, and focus on devising index structures and algorithms for efficient entity matching. However it is a big challenge to define “how similar is similar” for real applications, sinc...

MCCUNE, B., and T. F. H. ALLEN. 1985. Will similar forests develop on similar sites? Can. J. Bot. 63: 367-376. Abies grandis, Taxus brevifolia, Thuja plicata, or any combination of these may dominate old-growth mesic forests of the Bitterroot Canyons, western Montana. Similar sites need not develop similar, relatively stable forests. This is shown by (i) anomalous distributional patterns of tre...

R I reviewed the minutes for the Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors (ALIMD) for 1889. These recorded the original organizational meeting of the group. Life insurance or assurance had started in this country in the early 1840s. Initially, the companies were mutual companies, owned by the policy holders and often dedicated to serving a specific clientele. The major risk in insuring t...

theory simply because no test tubes are involved: most computational biology, including most of the things my group does, is really computational experiment. Genuine theory, where theoretical models are built and pitted against observations, is on the rise too, but I do not think it will ever be as important in biology as it is in physics. This is because many crucial aspects of biological syst...