The plant size distribution differs systematically across developed and developing countries. For example, in developing countries, less than one fifth of 1% of plants are large (employ 100 or more employees) and account for about one fifth of total employment. In sharp contrast, in developed countries, more than 1.6% of plants are large and account for more than two fifth of total employment. ...

Coffee is prepared by the extraction of a complex array of organic molecules from the roasted bean, which has been ground into fine particulates. The extraction depends on temperature, water chemistry and also the accessible surface area of the coffee. Here we investigate whether variations in the production processes of single origin coffee beans affects the particle size distribution upon gri...

Max Buot The Maximum Likelihood Degree of the Cauchy Location Likelihood. Maximum likelihood theory ensures that exactly one root of the Cauchy location likelihood equation is near 0, with all other roots bounded away from 0, in probability, as the sample size increases. However, the theory does not yield information concerning the total number of roots. In this talk, we determine the maximum l...

Despite the widespread assumption that the learning abilities of animals are adapted to the particular environments in which they operate, the quantitative effects of learning performance on fitness remain virtually unknown. Here, we evaluate the learning performance of bumble-bees (Bombus terrestris) from multiple colonies in an ecologically relevant associative learning task under laboratory ...

The size and shape of organs is species specific, and even in species in which organ size is strongly influenced by environmental cues, such as nutrition or temperature, it follows defined rules. Therefore, mechanisms must exist to ensure a tight control of organ size within a given species, while being flexible enough to allow for the evolution of different organ sizes in different species. We...

Several authors have argued recently that extensive taxon sampling has a positive and important effect on the accuracy of phylogenetic estimates. However, other authors have argued that there is little benefit of extensive taxon sampling, and so phylogenetic problems can or should be reduced to a few exemplar taxa as a means of reducing the computational complexity of the phylogenetic analysis....

In this study, we aimed to assess how sample sizes affect confidence of stand-scale transpiration (E) estimates calculated from sap flux (F(d)) and sapwood area (A(S_tree)) measurements of individual trees. In a Japanese cypress plantation, we measured F(d) and A(S_tree) in all trees (n = 58) within a 20 x 20 m study plot, which was divided into four 10 x 10 subplots. We calculated E from stand...

Their small sizes have meant that the Arabidopsis and rice genomes are the best-studied of all plant genomes. Although even closely related plant species can show large variations in genome size, extensive genome colinearity has been established at the genetic level and recently also at the gene level. This allows the transfer of information and resources assembled for rice and Arabidopsis to b...

Discrete-choice experiments (DCEs) have become a commonly used instrument in health economics and patient-preference analysis, addressing a wide range of policy questions. An important question when setting up a DCE is the size of the sample needed to answer the research question of interest. Although theory exists as to the calculation of sample size requirements for stated choice data, it doe...