This paper investigates the idea of supporting metadata querying and restructuring using extensions of the SQL:1999 facilities for integrity constraints and active databases. Our approach involves associating meta-functionality with federation relations by means of constraints, assertions, and triggers. This approach can underpin recent work on dynamic interoperability in relational federations...

Labile maturation and sex determination should be advantageous where the probability of finding a mating partner is unpredictable. Here we tested the hypothesis that the presence of a potential mating partner induces maturation and sex determination in a coral-dwelling fish, Gobiodon erythrospilus. In natural populations at Lizard Island (Great Barrier Reef), single individuals were less likely...

A certain group of English verbs, the ergatives, is consistently mis-passivized in Chinese-speakers' interlanguage. Comparison of the ergative construction in Chinese and English shows that they share similar properties. However, this does not seem to facilitate learning of the target English construction. Furthermore, the passive ergatives are not attributable to exemplification in either the ...

Although silicon clusters (Sin) exhibit a diversity of 3-dimensional shapes, a cubic form has not been found to be stable in their small size of 8 Si atoms. While the cubane C8H8 is wellknown for chemists, the octasilacubane Si8H8 possessing a cubic structure has never been synthesized. Using quantum chemical computations we find that doping can lead to stable cubic silicon clusters such as Be@...