The potential sensitivity of ecological models to differences in soil temperature and soil water from land-surface models was evaluated by using model output from the PILPS land-surface model comparison. Simulated soil water and temperatures from the land-surface models were used to calculate the abiotic decomposition factor (ADF). ADF is used by ecosystem models to directly control microbial a...

We examined the hierarchical structure of the Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI) as a function of gender and examined the occurrence of gender differences in anxiety sensitivity (AS) dimensions in a large nonclinical sample of children and adolescents (N = 1698). Separate principal components analyses (PCAs) on the 18 CASI items for the total sample, boys, and girls revealed similar low...

The Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI), created by Cutter et al. (2003), examined the spatial patterns of social vulnerability to natural hazards at the county level in the United States in order to describe and understand the social burdens of risk. The purpose of this article is to examine the sensitivity of quantitative features underlying the SoVI approach to changes in its construction, the...

We have investigated the influence of multimode fiber core (MMFC) diameters and lengths on the sensitivity of an SMS fiber based refractometer. We show that the MMFC diameter has significant influence on the refractive index (RI) sensitivity but the length does not. A refractometer with a lower MMFC diameter has a higher sensitivity. Experimental investigations achieved a maximum sensitivity of...

normal 0 false false false en-us x-none ar-sa background: the purpose of this study is to determine sensitivity and specificity of body mass index (bmi) based on center for disease control 2000 (cdc) percentiles compared to fat mass index (fmi) as an indicator of being really obese in children. obesity was compared based on these two indexes among children under study. materials and methods: th...

Gold nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes, including nanospheres, nanocubes, nanobranches, nanorods, and nanobipyramids, were dispersed into water-glycerol mixtures of varying volume ratios to investigate the response of their surface plasmon peaks to the refractive index of the surrounding medium. The refractive index sensitivities and figures of merit were found to be dependent on both...

OBJECTIVE Weight loss is common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Anorexia, postulated to be associated with alteration in taste sensitivity, may contribute to weight loss in these patients. Pulmonary rehabilitation is known to lead to improved exercise performance in patients with COPD. However, the relationship between pulmonary rehabilitation and taste sensitivit...

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of diabetes and to study the effects of excess growth hormone (GH) on insulin sensitivity and β-cell function in Korean acromegalic patients. One hundred and eighty-four acromegalic patients were analyzed to assess the prevalence of diabetes, and 52 naïve acromegalic patients were enrolled in order to analyze insulin sensitivity and insulin sec...