We tested the hypothesis that the effect of forest basal area on tree growth interacts with macro-ecological gradients of primary productivity, using a large dataset of eucalypt tree growth collected across temperate and sub- tropical mesic Australia. To do this, we derived an index of inter-tree competition based on stand basal area (stand BA) relative to the climatically determined potential ...

This will be a commentary on TSC 2008, not a summary, so I should say something about the perspective I bring. Consciousness is, after all, the medium in which we live our lives — the very subject of the founding of a science psychology, rejected by behaviourists on irrelevant metaphysical fears, and then treated only gingerly in the computational and information processing metatheories that ha...

Plant salt stress is a condition where excessive salts in soil solution cause inhibition of plant growth or plant death. On a world scale, no toxic substance restricts plant growth more than does salt. Salt stress presents an increasing threat to plant agriculture. Among the various sources of soil salinity, irrigation combined with poor drainage is the most serious, because it represents losse...

It is well established that extensive reading promotes the incidental learning of L1 and L2 receptive vocabulary; however, little is known about its effectiveness on productive gains in vocabulary knowledge. This paper investigates the extent to which extensive reading combined with writing tasks promotes productive vocabulary growth of Japanese university students. To examine changes in vocabu...

Secondary (i.e., heterotrophic or animal) production is a main pathway of energy flow through an ecosystem as it makes energy available to consumers, including humans. Its estimation can play a valuable role in the examination of linkages between ecosystem functions and services. We found that oil and gas platforms off the coast of California have the highest secondary fish production per unit ...

DEA models help a DMU to detect its (in-)efficiency and to improve activities, if necessary. Efficiency is only one economic aim for a decision-maker; however, up- or downsizing might be a second one. Improving efficiency is the main topic in DEA; the long-term strategy towards the right production size should attract our attention as well. Not always the management of a DMU primarily focuses o...

To investigate the effect of micro and macro stressors in the work environment on the subjective health status and productive behavior of computer professionals, we conducted a web-based investigation with Japanese IT-related company employees in 53 company unions. The questionnaire consisted of individual attributes, employment characteristics, working hour characteristics, company size and pr...

Dynamic domains are domains quickly created, used and discarded. Today, there are no facilities available to support dynamic domains in most network management systems. This paper introduces two new language to deal with dynamic domains. The first language is used to define new domains through the selection of managed objects. The second language, on its turn, is used to visualize already creat...