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Low Precision (low + precision)
Selected AbstractsSnorkelling as a method for assessing spawning stock of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salarFISHERIES MANAGEMENT & ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2007P. ORELL Abstract, Reliability of underwater snorkel counts of adult Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L., was analysed in the tributaries of the River Teno, close to the spawning period. In small (width 5,20 m) rivers, the replicated total counts of salmon were reasonably precise (CV = 5.4,8.5%), while in the medium-sized river (width 20,40 m) the precision of the counting method was considerably lower (CV = 15.3%). Low precision in a medium sized river was also observed in an experiment using marked live fish where the observation efficiency varied between 36.4% and 70.0%. In a small river, the detection efficiency of artificial fish silhouettes (test salmon) was almost perfect in pools (98%), but decreased in rapids (84%). Separate counts of males, females, grilse and large salmon were usually more variable than total counts, indicating that divers were more capable of locating a fish than properly identifying its sex and sea-age. The behaviour of adult salmon was favourable to conduct snorkel counts, as fish normally stayed still, or after hesitating, moved upstream (>95%of the cases) when encountering a diver. The high observation efficiency (>90%) and precision, favourable behaviour of salmon and congruence between snorkel counts and catch statistics in small rivers suggest that reliable data on Atlantic salmon spawning stock can be collected by snorkeling provided that the environmental conditions are suitable and the divers are experienced. [source] Variable reporting and quantitative reviews: a comparison of three meta-analytical techniquesECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 5 2003Marc J. Lajeunesse Abstract Variable reporting of results can influence quantitative reviews by limiting the number of studies for analysis, and thereby influencing both the type of analysis and the scope of the review. We performed a Monte Carlo simulation to determine statistical errors for three meta-analytical approaches and related how such errors were affected by numbers of constituent studies. Hedges'd and effect sizes based on item response theory (IRT) had similarly improved error rates with increasing numbers of studies when there was no true effect, but IRT was conservative when there was a true effect. Log response ratio had low precision for detecting null effects as a result of overestimation of effect sizes, but high ability to detect true effects, largely irrespective of number of studies. Traditional meta-analysis based on Hedges'd are preferred; however, quantitative reviews should use various methods in concert to improve representation and inferences from summaries of published data. [source] A novel approach for question answering and automatic diagnosis based on pervasive agent ontology in medicineINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 7 2010Qing-lin Guo With question answering system in medicine, users could use sentences in daily life to raise questions. The question answering system will analyze and comprehend these questions and return answers to users directly. Aiming at the problems in automatic diagnosis for medicine, such as low precision of question answering, imperfect expression of domain knowledge, low reuse rate, and lack of reasonable theory reference models, we put forward the information integration method of semantic Web based on pervasive agent ontology (SWPAO method) in medicine, which will integrate, analyze, and process enormous Web information and extract answers on the basis of semantics. A novel approach for automatic diagnosis in medicine based on ontology and fuzzy rough set is brought forward. The data mining algorithm for automatic diagnosis rules in medicine is brought forward: (1) computing the measurement matrix of effect; (2) extracting rules; (3) computing the importance of rules; (4) shearing the rules by genetic algorithm. In this paper, rough sets method is used to take potential diagnosis rule from the decision-making table in medicine. These rules can offer effective automatic diagnosis service. With the SWPAO method as the clue, we mainly study the method of concept extraction based on uniform semantic term mining, pervasive agent ontology construction method on account of multipoints and the answer extraction in view of semantic inference. Meanwhile, we present the structural model of the question answering system applying ontology, which adopts OWL language to describe domain knowledge base from where it infers and extracts answers by Jena inference engine, thus the precision of question answering in QA system could be improved. In the system testing, the precision has reached 86% and the recalling rate is 93%. The experiment indicates that this method is feasible, and it has the significance of reference and value of further study for the question answering systems in medicine. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Estimates of maximum annual population growth rates (rm) of mammals and their application in wildlife managementJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Jim Hone Summary 1.,The maximum annual population growth rate (rm) is a critical parameter in many models of wildlife dynamics and management. An important application of rm is the estimation of the maximum proportion of a population that can be removed to stop population growth (p). 2.,When rm cannot be estimated in the field, one option is to estimate it from demographic data. We evaluate the use of the relationship between rm and female age at first reproduction (,), which is independent of phylogeny, to estimate rm. We first demonstrate that the relationship between field and demographic estimates of rm is unbiased. We then show that the relationship provides an unbiased and simple method to estimate rm using data for 64 mammal species. We also show that p declines exponentially as , increases. 3.,We use the fitted relationship to estimate annual rm and p for 55 mammal species in Australia and New Zealand for which there are no field estimates of rm. The estimates differ by species but have low precision (wide 95% credible intervals CIs). Our estimate of rm for the Tasmanian devil Sarcophilus harrisii is high (0·6, 95% CI: 0·05,2·39) and suggests devils would become extinct if >0·34 of the population is removed annually (e.g. by facial tumour disease). Our estimate of rm (0·77, 95% CI: 0·71,1·05) for brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula is much greater than published estimates and highlights the need for further field estimates of rm for the species in New Zealand. 4.,Synthesis and applications. Since rm has not been estimated in the field for the majority of mammal species, our approach enables estimates with credible intervals for this important parameter to be obtained for any species for which female age at first reproduction is known. However, the estimates have wide 95% CIs. The estimated rm, and associated uncertainty can then be used in population and management models, perhaps most importantly to estimate the proportion that if removed annually would drive the population to extinction. Our approach can be used for taxa other than mammals. [source] Fine-scale genetic structure and gene dispersal inferences in 10 Neotropical tree speciesMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2006OLIVIER J. HARDY Abstract The extent of gene dispersal is a fundamental factor of the population and evolutionary dynamics of tropical tree species, but directly monitoring seed and pollen movement is a difficult task. However, indirect estimates of historical gene dispersal can be obtained from the fine-scale spatial genetic structure of populations at drift,dispersal equilibrium. Using an approach that is based on the slope of the regression of pairwise kinship coefficients on spatial distance and estimates of the effective population density, we compare indirect gene dispersal estimates of sympatric populations of 10 tropical tree species. We re-analysed 26 data sets consisting of mapped allozyme, SSR (simple sequence repeat), RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) or AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) genotypes from two rainforest sites in French Guiana. Gene dispersal estimates were obtained for at least one marker in each species, although the estimation procedure failed under insufficient marker polymorphism, limited sample size, or inappropriate sampling area. Estimates generally suffered low precision and were affected by assumptions regarding the effective population density. Averaging estimates over data sets, the extent of gene dispersal ranged from 150 m to 1200 m according to species. Smaller gene dispersal estimates were obtained in species with heavy diaspores, which are presumably not well dispersed, and in populations with high local adult density. We suggest that limited seed dispersal could indirectly limit effective pollen dispersal by creating higher local tree densities, thereby increasing the positive correlation between pollen and seed dispersal distances. We discuss the potential and limitations of our indirect estimation procedure and suggest guidelines for future studies. [source] Coordination polymers and hydrogen-bonded assemblies of 2,2,-[2,5-bis(carboxymethoxy)-1,4-phenylene]diacetic acid with ammonium, lanthanum and zinc cationsACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION C, Issue 9 2010Hatem M. Titi We report the synthesis of the 2,2,-[2,5-bis(carboxymethoxy)-1,4-phenylene]diacetic acid (TALH4) ligand and the structures of its adducts with ammonium, namely diammonium 2,2,-[2,5-bis(carboxymethyl)-1,4-phenylenedioxy]diacetate, 2NH4+·C14H12O102,, (I), lanthanum, namely poly[[aquabis[,4 -2,2,-(2-carboxylatomethyl-5-carboxymethyl-1,4-phenylenedioxy)diacetato]dilanthanum(III)] monohydrate], {[La2(C14H11O10)2(H2O)]·H2O}n, (II), and zinc cations, namely poly[[{,4 -2,2,-[2,5-bis(carboxymethyl)-1,4-phenylenedioxy]diacetato}zinc(II)] trihydrate], {[Zn(C14H12O10)]·3H2O}n, (III), and poly[[diaqua(,2 -4,4,-bipyridyl){,4 -2,2,-[2,5-bis(carboxymethyl)-1,4-phenylenedioxy]diacetato}dizinc(II)] dihydrate], {[Zn2(C14H10O10)(C10H8N2)(H2O)2]·2H2O}n, (IV), the formation of all four being associated with deprotonation of TALH4. Adduct (I) is a diammonium salt of TALH22,, with the ions located on centres of crystallographic inversion. Its crystal structure reveals a three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded assembly of the component species. Reaction of TALH4 with lanthanum trinitrate hexahydrate yielded a two-dimensional double-layer coordination polymer, (II), in which the LaIII cations are nine-coordinate. With zinc dinitrate hexahydrate, TALH4 forms 1:1 two-dimensional coordination polymers, in which every ZnII cation is linked to four neighbouring TALH22, anions and each unit of the organic ligand is coordinated to four different tetrahedral ZnII cation connectors. The crystal structure of this compound accommodates molecules of disordered water at the interface between adjacent polymeric layers to give (III), and it has been determined with low precision. Another polymer assembly, (IV), was obtained when zinc dinitrate hexahydrate was reacted with TALH4 in the presence of an additional 4,4,-bipyridyl ligand. In the crystal structure of (IV), the bipyridyl and TAL4, entities are located on two different inversion centres. The ternary coordination polymers form layered arrays with corrugated surfaces, with the ZnII cation connectors revealing a tetrahedral coordination environment. The two-dimensional polymers in (II),(IV) are interconnected with each other by hydrogen bonds involving the metal-coordinated and noncoordinated molecules of water. TALH4 is doubly deprotonated, TALH22,, in (I) and (III), triply deprotonated, viz. TALH3,, in (II), and quadruply deprotonated, viz. TAL4,, in (IV). This report provides the first structural characterization of TALH4 (in deprotonated form) and its various supramolecular adducts. It also confirms the potential utility of this tetraacid ligand in the formulation of coordination polymers with metal cations. [source] | ||||||||||