Far Greater (far + greater)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Elusive '68: The Challenge to Pedagogy

DIE UNTERRICHTSPRAXIS/TEACHING GERMAN, Issue 2 2008
William Collins Donahue
Teaching ,68 presents pedagogical challenges far greater than assembling a set of workable classroom materials. Divisive controversies that were the hallmark of the time,e.g., the debate over the nature and appropriate use of violence,are with us still, though in a somewhat different form. Further, the instructor,s own politics and positionality can hardly be ignored,as they will certainly not be overlooked by our students. Additionally, this essay argues that fundamental terms (such as who qualifies as a ,68er) remain problematic; that the instrumentalization of the Holocaust by the German New Left continues to affect political decisions down to the present; that our investment as teachers in poststructuralist literary theory may,perhaps inadvertently,affect the way we view and therefore teach ,68; and, finally, that there is a pressing need, despite a recent explosion in Germany of publications celebrating the fortieth anniversary of ,68, for a didacticized reader designed for the North American German Studies classroom. [source]


Verbatim and gist recall of sentences by dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults

DYSLEXIA, Issue 3 2006
T. R. Miles
Abstract Forty-eight college students, 24 of them dyslexic, were presented with four sentences of increasing complexity. Participants were asked to repeat each sentence and a record was kept of the number of repetitions required before 100% correct accuracy was achieved. None of the 24 control participants required a total of more than eight repetitions over the four sentences, whereas among the dyslexics the total number of repetitions needed ranged from one to 25. Dyslexic participants were unpredictable in their performance from one level of difficulty to the next and inter-individual variability was far greater in the dyslexic group than in the control group. Overall, despite their relatively poor performance in achieving verbatim accuracy relative to non-dyslexic participants, dyslexic individuals regularly managed to preserve the gist of the sentences. Some theoretical issues arising from these results are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


A METAPOPULATION PERSPECTIVE ON GENETIC DIVERSITY AND DIFFERENTIATION IN PARTIALLY SELF-FERTILIZING PLANTS

EVOLUTION, Issue 12 2002
Pärk. Ingvarsson
Abstract., Partial self-fertilization is common in higher plants. Mating system variation is known to have important consequences for how genetic variation is distributed within and among populations. Selfing is known to reduce effective population size, and inbreeding species are therefore expected to have lower levels of genetic variation than comparable out crossing taxa. However, several recent empirical studies have shown that reductions in genetic diversity within populations of inbreeding species are far greater than the expected reductions based on the reduced effective population size. Two different processes have been argued to cause these patterns, selective sweeps (or hitchhiking) and background selection. Both are expected to be most effective in reducing genetic variation in regions of low recombination rates. Selfing is known to reduce the effective recombination rate, and inbreeding taxa are thus thought to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of hitchhiking or background selection. Here I propose a third explanation for the lower-than-expected levels of genetic diversity within populations of selfing species; recurrent extinctions and recolonizations of local populations, also known as metapopulation dynamics. I show that selfing in a metapopulation setting can result in large reductions in genetic diversity within populations, far greater than expected based the lower effective population size inbreeding species is expected to have. The reason for this depends on an interaction between selfing and pollen migration. [source]


Hypoxia-based habitat compression of tropical pelagic fishes

FISHERIES OCEANOGRAPHY, Issue 6 2006
ERIC D. PRINCE
Abstract Large areas of cold hypoxic water occur as distinct strata in the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) and Atlantic oceans as a result of high productivity initiated by intense nutrient upwelling. We show that this stratum restricts the depth distribution of tropical pelagic marlins, sailfish, and tunas by compressing the acceptable physical habitat into a narrow surface layer. This layer extends downward to a variable boundary defined by a shallow thermocline, often at 25 m, above a barrier of cold hypoxic water. The depth distributions of marlin and sailfish monitored with electronic tags and average dissolved oxygen (DO) and temperature profiles show that this cold hypoxic environment constitutes a lower habitat boundary in the ETP, but not in the western North Atlantic (WNA), where DO is not limiting. Eastern Pacific and eastern Atlantic sailfish are larger than those in WNA, where the hypoxic zone is much deeper or absent. Larger sizes may reflect enhanced foraging opportunities afforded by the closer proximity of predator and prey in compressed habitat, as well as by the higher productivity. The shallow band of acceptable habitat restricts these fishes to a very narrow surface layer and makes them more vulnerable to over-exploitation by surface gears. Predictably, the long-term landings of tropical pelagic tunas from areas of habitat compression have been far greater than in surrounding areas. Many tropical pelagic species in the Atlantic Ocean are currently either fully exploited or overfished and their future status could be quite sensitive to increased fishing pressures, particularly in areas of habitat compression. [source]


Retardation of Organic Contaminants in Natural Fractures in Chalk

GROUND WATER, Issue 3 2002
A. Wefer-Roehl
Transport of a conservative compound and two sorbing compounds through fractured chalk was studied using flow-through columns consisting of chalk cores with a single subvertical fracture. Two types of chalk matrix were compared, an oxidized white chalk with low organic carbon content (0.2%), and a gray chalk with a higher organic carbon content (1.3%). Initial rapid breakthrough followed by a delayed approach to a relative concentration of unity for the conservative compound (2,6,difluorobenzoic acid [DFBA]) was clear evidence for diffusion into the porous chalk matrix. Matrix diffusion of DFBA was apparently much greater in the gray chalk columns than in the white chalk columns. Breakthrough curves (BTCs) of the sorbing compounds (2,4,6,tri-bromophenol [TBP] and ametryn [AME]) were retarded in all cases as compared to the conservative compound. Sorption retardation was far greater in the gray chalk as compared with the white chalk, in good agreement with results from batch sorption experiments. BTCs for the conservative compound were relatively nonhysteretic for both white and gray chalk columns. In contrast, BTCs for the sorbing compounds were hysteretic in all cases, demonstrating that sorption was not at equilibrium before desorp-tion began. These experiments suggest that on a field scale, transport of contaminants through fractures in chalk and other fractured porous media will be attenuated by diffusion and sorption into the matrix. [source]


Semi-analytical method for departure point determination

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Issue 2 2005
Nick Martin
Abstract A new method for departure point determination on Cartesian grids, the semi-analytical upwind path line tracing (SUT) method, is presented and compared to two typical departure point determination methods used in semi-Lagrangian advection schemes, the Euler method and the four-step Runge,Kutta method. Rigorous comparisons of the three methods were conducted for a severely curving hypothetical flow field and for advective transport in the rotation of a Gaussian concentration hill. The SUT method was shown to have equivalent accuracy to the Runge,Kutta method but with significantly improved computational efficiency. Depending on the case being simulated, the SUT method provides either far greater or equivalent computational efficiency and more certain accuracy than the Euler method. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


PMMA particles and pressure,a study of the osteolytic properties of two agents proposed to cause prosthetic loosening

JOURNAL OF ORTHOPAEDIC RESEARCH, Issue 2 2003
Björn Skoglund
Amongst the wear debris particles implicated in the particle hypothesis for prosthetic loosening are polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and particularly PMMA with barium sulphate contrast agent. Another suggested cause for loosening is hydrostatic pressure. PMMA particles were combined with hydrostatic pressure in a study to investigate whether there could be a synergistic or additive effect between these two factors. Titanium plates were fastened onto tibiae of 59 rats. After osseointegration, PMMA particles with barium sulphate were administered to the bone-implant interface. Further, PMMA particles were introduced into a previously published model for hydrostatic pressure induced osteolysis. There was measurable resorption in response to the PMMA particles but no additive or synergistic effect from introducing particles to the pressure model, and the effect of pressure was far greater than that of particles. These results suggest that, whereas particles can be shown to elicit an osteolytic response, the much less studied osteolytic effects of pressure could be far more important. © 2002 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. [source]


China or the United States: which threatens energy security?

OPEC ENERGY REVIEW, Issue 3 2007
Wu Lei
As the global energy market undergoes profound changes with price of oil reaching record highs and China emerging as a major force in world energy and global energy geo-politics, a debate on what has been described as ,China energy threat' seems to be gaining ground in western strategic circles. However, this is an illusion that is now somewhat exaggerated and overrated. As a matter of fact, the effect of the United States on global energy security affairs is far greater than that of China, and Washington is also not always the defender of the energy security as it claims to be. [source]


Taller women do better in a stressed environment: Height and reproductive success in rural Guatemalan women

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2008
Thomas V. Pollet
Previous research on the relationship between height and reproductive success in women has produced mixed results. One possible explanation for these is mediation by ecological factors, such as environmental stress. Here we investigate female height and reproductive success under conditions of environmental stress (poverty) using a large scale dataset from Guatemala (n = 2,571). Controlling for educational attainment, age and ethnicity, we examined relationships between height and childlessness, occurrence of a stillbirth, fertility and child survival. There was no significant relationship between height and never haven given birth. Extremely short women had a significantly raised likelihood of experiencing stillbirth. There were curvilinear relationships between height and age at first birth, fertility, and survival rates for children. Overall, though, the penalties for short stature, particularly in terms of child survival, were far greater than those associated with extreme tallness, and so female height is positively associated with overall fitness in this population. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Leading by Example: Female Members of Parliament as Political Role Models

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2007
Christina Wolbrecht
One argument advanced in favor of descriptive representation is that female politicians serve as role models, inspiring other women to political activity. While previous research finds female role models affect women's psychological engagement, few studies report an impact on women's active participation, and none have done so in cross-national research. Our work also is the first to consider whether the impact of female role models is, as the term implies, greater among the young. Using three cross-national datasets, we find that where there are more female members of parliament (MPs), adolescent girls are more likely to discuss politics with friends and to intend to participate in politics as adults, and adult women are more likely to discuss and participate in politics. The presence of female MPs registers the same effect on political discussion regardless of age, but the impact on women's political activity is far greater among the young than the old. [source]


The inner ear of the lungfish Protopterus

THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY, Issue 3 2004
Christopher Platt
Abstract The sensory end organs of the inner ear of the lungfish, Protopterus, were examined using scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The utricle has a structure and hair cell orientation pattern that are typical for vertebrates, although the hair cells are unusually large. There are the typical three semicircular canals extending from the utricle, with the typical hair cell orientations, but the lateral canal sensory crista looks like the "hemicrista" of some amphibians and amniotes, lacking a saddle-shaped flare on one wall of the ampulla. Unlike most vertebrates that have the saccule and lagena as two separate pouches ventral to the utricle, the lungfish has a single large ventral pouch that contains a single large pasty otoconial mass. This mass covers two hair cell patches, each like a striola with prominent hair cell ciliary bundles, that are presumed to represent saccular and lagenar maculae. However, these two major sensory patches are not completely separate maculae because they lie within a less densely populated field of smaller hair cells, which forms an extrastriolar region that surrounds and fills the region between the two striolae of higher hair cell density. The more caudal lagenar striola is a vertically elongated stripe with hair cell orientation vectors facing antiparallel on either side of a midline drawn vertically along the macula, resembling the macula lagena of some bony fishes but not of tetrapods. The more rostral saccular striola is a curving band with hair cell orientation vectors facing away from its midline, but because this macula curves in three dimensions, the vectors at the rostral end of this striola are oriented mediolaterally, whereas the vectors on the caudal half of this striola are oriented dorsoventrally. The presence of a macula neglecta was confirmed near the posterior canal as a tiny single patch of a few dozen hair cells with all the cell orientations directed caudally. The ciliary bundles on the cells in the striolar-like regions of all of three otolithic organs average over 80 cilia, a number far greater than for any other fish studied to date. The features of the single sacculolagenar pouch with separate striolar-like regions, the cellular orientation in the otolith organs, and the large cells and ciliary bundles in Protopterus also were observed in specimens of the other extant lungfish genera, Lepidosiren and Neoceratodus. J. Comp. Neurol. 471:277,288, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Synchronization of enteric neuronal firing during the murine colonic MMC

THE JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY, Issue 3 2005
Nick J. Spencer
DiI (1,1,didodecyl-3,3,3,,3,-tetramethylindocarbecyanine perchlorate) retrograde labelling and intracellular electrophysiological techniques were used to investigate the mechanisms underlying the generation of spontaneously occurring colonic migrating myoelectric complexes (colonic MMCs) in mice. In isolated, intact, whole colonic preparations, simultaneous intracellular electrical recordings were made from pairs of circular muscle (CM) cells during colonic MMC activity in the presence of nifedipine (1,2 ,m). During the intervals between colonic MMCs, spontaneous inhibitory junction potentials (IJPs) were always present. The amplitudes of spontaneous IJPs were highly variable (range 1,20 mV) and occurred asynchronously in the two CM cells, when separated by 1 mm in the longitudinal axis. Colonic MMCs occurred every 151 ± 7 s in the CM and consisted of a repetitive discharge of cholinergic rapid oscillations in membrane potential (range: 1,20 mV) that were superimposed on a slow membrane depolarization (mean amplitude: 9.6 ± 0.5 mV; half-duration: 25.9 ± 0.7 s). During the rising (depolarizing) phase of each colonic MMC, cholinergic rapid oscillations occurred simultaneously in both CM cells, even when the two electrodes were separated by up to 15 mm along the longitudinal axis of the colon. Smaller amplitude oscillations (< 5 mV) showed poor temporal correlation between two CM cells, even at short electrode separation distances (i.e. < 1 mm in the longitudinal axis). When the two electrodes were separated by 20 mm, all cholinergic rapid oscillations and IJPs in the CM (regardless of amplitude) were rarely, if ever, coordinated in time during the colonic MMC. Cholinergic rapid oscillations were blocked by atropine (1 ,m) or tetrodotoxin (1 ,m). Slow waves were never recorded from any CM cells. DiI labelling showed that the maximum projection length of CM motor neurones and interneurones along the bowel was 2.8 mm and 13 mm, respectively. When recordings were made adjacent to either oral or anal cut ends of the colon, the inhibitory or excitatory phases of the colonic MMC were absent, respectively. In summary, during the colonic MMC, cholinergic rapid oscillations of similar amplitudes occur simultaneously in two CM cells separated by large distances (up to 15 mm). As this distance was found to be far greater than the projection length of any single CM motor neurone, we suggest that the generation of each discrete cholinergic rapid oscillation represents a discreet cholinergic excitatory junction potential (EJP) that involves the synaptic activation of many cholinergic motor neurones simultaneously, by synchronous firing in many myenteric interneurones. Our data also suggest that ascending excitatory and descending inhibitory nerve pathways interact and reinforce each other. [source]


Dryland salinity: economic, scientific, social and policy dimensions

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2001
David J. Pannell
A broad range of information relevant to salinity is reviewed in order to critically evaluate existing and prospective policy responses. The review includes issues of hydrogeology, farmer perceptions and preferences, farm-level economics of salinity management practices, spill-over benefits and costs from salinity management, and politics. The technical challenge of preventing salinity is far greater than previously recognised. The farm-level economics of currently available management practices for salinity prevention are adverse in many situations. Off-site benefits from on-farm practices are often small and long delayed. Past national salinity policies have been seriously flawed. While current policy proposals include positive elements, they have not sufficiently escaped from the past. [source]


Cesarean Delivery in Native American Women: Are Low Rates Explained by Practices Common to the Indian Health Service?

BIRTH, Issue 3 2005
Sheila F. Mahoney CNM
ABSTRACT:,Background: Studying populations with low cesarean delivery rates can identify strategies for reducing unnecessary cesareans in other patient populations. Native American women have among the lowest cesarean delivery rates of all United States populations, yet few studies have focused on Native Americans. The study purpose was to determine the rate and risk factors for cesarean delivery in a Native American population. Methods: We used a case-control design nested within a cohort of Native American live births, , 35 weeks of gestation (n = 789), occurring at an Indian Health Service hospital during 1996,1999. Data were abstracted from the labor and delivery logbook, the hospital's primary source of birth certificate data. Univariate and multivariate analyses examined demographic, prenatal, obstetric, intrapartum, and fetal factors associated with cesarean versus vaginal delivery. Results: The total cesarean rate was 9.6 percent (95% CI 7.2,12.0). Nulliparity, a medical diagnosis, malpresentation, induction, labor length > 12.1 hours, arrested labor, fetal distress, meconium, and gestations < 37 weeks were each significantly associated with cesarean delivery in unadjusted analyses. The final multivariate model included a significant interaction between induction and arrested labor (p < 0.001); the effect of arrested labor was far greater among induced (OR 161.9) than noninduced (OR 6.0) labors. Other factors significantly associated with cesarean delivery in the final logistic model were an obstetrician labor attendant (OR 2.4; p = 0.02) and presence of meconium (OR 2.3; p = 0.03). Conclusions: Despite a higher prevalence of medical risk factors for cesarean delivery, the rate at this hospital was well below New Mexico (16.4%, all races) and national (21.2%, all races) cesarean rates for 1998. Medical and practice-related factors were the only observed independent correlates of cesarean delivery. Implementation of institutional and practitioner policies common to the Indian Health Service may reduce cesarean deliveries in other populations. [source]


Microcalorimetric studies on influence of Sm3+, Dy3+ on growth and sporulation of Bacillus thuringiensis

CHINESE JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY, Issue 12 2004
Ru-Ming Zhao
Abstract By using an LKB-2277 Bioactivity Monitor and cycle-flow method, the thermogenic curves of aerobic growth for Bacillus thuringiensis cry II strain at 28 °C have been obtained. The metabolic thermogenic curves of Bt cry II contain two distinct parts: the first part reflects the changes of bacterial growth phase and the second part corresponds to sporulation phase. From these thermogenic curves in the absence or presence of Sm3+, Dy3+ ions, the thermokinetic parameters such as the growth rate constants k, the interval time ,I, the maximum power PMAX1 and heat-output QLOG for log phase, the maximum power PMAX2 and heat-output QSTAT for stationary phase, the heat-output QSPOR for sporulation phase and total heat effects QT were calculated. Sm3+ and Dy3+ ions have promoting action on the growth of Bt cry II in their lower concentration range, on the other hand, they have inhibitory action on the sporulation of Bt in their higher concentration range. It has also been found that the effects of Sm3+ and Dy3+ ions on Br firing the sporulation phase were far greater than those during the bacterial growth phase. It was concluded that the application of Bt for controlling insecticide could not be affected by the presence of the rare-earth elements in the environmental ecosystem. [source]


Sensitivity to the acceleration of looming stimuli

CLINICAL & EXPERIMENTAL OPHTHALMOLOGY, Issue 3 2003
James Trewhella BSc(Hons)
Abstract The aim of this study was to determine if observers could discriminate between looming stimuli simulating targets approaching the observers at either constant or non-constant speeds. Discrimination between accelerating and constant-speed approaches improved after 70,90 trials for accelerations >2 m/s2. For lower accelerations the ability to discriminate was poor regardless of the trial number. Following the learning phase, observers were able to identify accelerating targets from constant-speed approaches fairly consistently at performance levels of 70,75% for accelerations as low as 4 m/s2 and at 80,96% for accelerations of 6,14 m/s2. Observers' accuracy in identifying decelerating from constant-speed targets did not increase as a function of increasing deceleration. In fact, observers had a slight bias to select the constant-speed stimulus as being the decelerating stimulus. In summary, the sensitivity to acceleration for simulated motion in depth is poor, but increases as acceleration increases and sensitivity to acceleration is far greater than for deceleration. [source]