Basic Unit (basic + unit)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Catchments as Basic Units of Management in Conservation Biology Courses

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 5 2001
William E. Magnusson
No abstract is available for this article. [source]


China's Rangelands under Stress: A Comparative Study of Pasture Commons in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2000
Peter Ho
China's economic reforms have exacerbated the problems of over-grazing and desertification in the country's pastoral areas. In order to deal with rangeland degradation, the Chinese government has resorted to nationalization, or semi-privatization. Since the implementation of rangeland policy has proved very difficult, however, experiments with alternative rangeland tenure systems merit our attention. In Ningxia, in northwest China, local attempts have been undertaken to establish communal range management systems with the village as the basic unit of use and control. Some of these management regimes are under severe stress, due to large-scale digging for medicinal herbs in the grasslands. This digging has resulted in serious conflicts between Han and Hui Muslim Chinese, during which several farmers have been killed. It is against this backdrop that this article explores the institutional dynamics of range management in two different villages. [source]


Incorporating Comparisons Standard 4.1 into Foreign Language Teaching

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 2 2003
Article first published online: 31 DEC 200, Serafima Gettys
Drawing on Slobin's (1996) experimental study, which demonstrated the existence of "the thinking for speaking" form of thought, it is argued that teaching a foreign language entails teaching novel "thinking for speaking" operations and it is at this point of instruction that the use of L1-L2 comparisons is most warranted. In addition, linguistic and psycholingustic evidence in favor of using the word as a basic unit of linguistic comparisons in the foreign language classroom is provided. Finally, practical suggestions as to how linguistic comparisons can be included in day-to-day teaching are offered. [source]


OUTSOURCING: TRANSACTION COST ECONOMICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT,

JOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008
OLIVER E. WILLIAMSON
This article examines outsourcing from the transaction cost economics (TCE) perspective. The transaction is made the basic unit of analysis and the procurement decision, as between make and buy, is made (principally) with reference to a transaction cost economizing purpose. As sketched herein, the ease of contracting varies with the attributes of the transaction, with special emphasis on whether preserving continuity between a particular buyer,seller pair is the source of added value. The basic regularity is this: as bilateral dependency builds up, the efficient governance of contractual relations progressively moves from simple market exchange to hybrid contracting (with credibility supports) to hierarchy. This last corresponds to the "make" decision, which, as viewed from the TCE perspective, is viewed as the organization form of last resort. The article successively describes the lens of contract approach to economic organization, the operationalization of TCE, different styles of outsourcing, qualifications to the foregoing and the main lessons of TCE for the supply chain literature. [source]


A 26,38 GHz millimeter-wave band APDP sub-harmonic mixer

MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 8 2008
Shu-Jenn Yu
Abstract A 26,38 GHz millimeter-wave (MMW) band sub-harmonic mixer has been designed using a 0.15-,m GaAs pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor (pHEMT) technology. The anti-parallel diode pair (APDP) configuration as the basic unit in this sub-harmonic mixer design to suppress the fundamental frequency signals is used. The radio-frequency (RF) and the local oscillator (LO) signals are imported by two Lange couplers in the proposed design, with four pairs of APDPs connected in a ring structure. Superior RF/LO-to-IF (intermediate-frequency) and 2LO-to-RF/IF isolations have been achieved. The sub-harmonic mixer circuit has also exhibited excellent conversion loss of 13.7 dB with LO power of 13 dBm. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 2135,2138, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23595 [source]


The impact of past pregnancy experience on subsequent perinatal outcomes

PAEDIATRIC & PERINATAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 4 2008
Jennifer A. Hutcheon
Summary In perinatal epidemiology, the basic unit of analysis has traditionally been the individual pregnancy. In this study, we sought to explore the idea of a ,reproductive life'-based approach to modelling the effects of reproductive exposures and outcomes, where the basic unit of analysis is a woman's entire reproductive experience. Our objective was to explore whether a first pregnancy risk factor, excess gestational weight gain, has a direct effect on the birthweight outcomes of a subsequent pregnancy, independent of the weight gain and other risk factors of the second pregnancy. A study population was created by linking the obstetric records of 1220 women who delivered their first and second offspring at a McGill University teaching hospital in Montreal, Canada. Multivariable linear and logistic regression analyses were used to model the effects of gestational weight gain above recommendation on the birthweight Z -score and risk of large-for-gestational age (LGA) subsequent offspring. After adjusting for the risk factors of the second pregnancy, an independent effect from the first pregnancy was seen on the birthweight Z -score, (effect size OR 0.17 [95% CI 0.05, 0.28] but not risk of LGA of the second pregnancy 1.30 [95% CI 0.89, 1.89]). We concluded that a pregnancy-centred approach to research that conceptualises pregnancies as self-contained and interchangeable events may not always be appropriate, and propose that analytical methods for some perinatal research questions may need to consider a given pregnancy in the context of a woman's past reproductive experiences. [source]


Predicting financial failure: some evidence from new brunswick agricultural co-ops

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2005
by Jorge Dietrich
However, investor-owner firms form the basic unit of analysis of most popular bankruptcy predictors used in Canada. The question is whether the key underlying elements that differentiates the latter from co-ops justifies deriving specific bankruptcy prediction formulas exclusively for each type of business organization. To that effect, this research evaluates the efficacy of these current predictors and suggests an improved predictor for agricultural co-operatives. [source]


Construction of an Aboriginal Theory of Mind and Mental Health1

ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 2 2009
Lewis Mehl-Madrona
ABSTRACT Most research on aboriginal mind and mental health has sought to apply or confirm preexisting European-derived theories among aboriginal people. Culture has been underappreciate. An understanding of uniquely aboriginal models for mind and mental health might lead to more effective and robust interventions. To address this issue, a core group of elders from five separate regions of North America was developed to help determine how aboriginal people conceived of mind, self, and identity before European contact. The process utilized for this study is iterative and involves discussions of teachings, traditional stories, and elder's comments on conclusions drawn. The elders endorsed a relational theory of mind in which mind exists between people as a product of the stories told and created within and by that relationship. Mind is distinguished from consciousness which is without language and exists within the individual as awareness. Language immediately results in an "out there" orientation in which two or more individuals generate stories about their experiences. The community is the basic unit of study for mind and mental health, and mental "illness" is not distinguished from physical "illness," but rather all are seen as a continuum of suffering and pain. What emerged from this research is that North American theories of mind are more closely related to Daoist and Shinto theories than to the logical positivism which drives most of North America's conventional psychology and psychiatry. Within European traditions, however, the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin with his emphasis on a dialogical self coupled with system theory comes closest to resembling North American aboriginal theories. This model explains why ceremony and ritual, community interventions, talking circles (including AA and the Wellbriety Movement), and family therapy are more compatible with aboriginal thought than conventional North American biomedicine and psychology. [source]


Psychological Collectivism as a Moderator of the Impact of Supervisor,Subordinate Personality Similarity on Employees' Service Quality

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2003
C. Harry Hui
Des chercheurs ont démontré que le collectivisme psychologique joue un rôle modérateur dans la relation entre certains construits. Les caractéristiques situationnelles peuvent avoir différents impacts sur les individualistes et les collectivistes dont les attitudes et valeurs divergent face aux relations interpersonnelles. Les collectivistes accordent beaucoup d'importance aux relations harmonieuses avec autrui, et seraient démoralisés quand ces relations sont menacées ou qu'elles ne se développent pas. Les individualistes voient l'individu comme la base de la survie et sont moins affectés par un manque d'harmonie. Nous avions prévu que l'effet de la similitude de personnalité entre superviseur,subordonné sur la qualité des services qu'un employé offre serait plus grand pour les collectivistes que pour les individualistes. Cette hypothèse a été testée auprès de 605 représentants à la clientèle et 113 superviseurs pour qui la similitude de personnalité a été mesurée par le nombre d'items pour lesquels les deux parties ont donné la même réponse. Bien que le collectivisme psychologique n'a pas d'effet direct sur la qualité du service, une analyse de régression indique que cette variable entre en interaction avec la similitude de personnalité. Ce résultat donne plus de soutien au modèle du rôle modérateur du collectivisme psychologique. Researchers have found psychological collectivism (PC) to play a moderating role in relationships among certain constructs. Situational characteristics may have different impacts on individualists and collectivists, who have discrepant attitudes and values regarding interpersonal relationships. The collectivists strongly value harmonious relationships with others, and would be demoralised when such relationships are threatened or do not materialise at all. The individualists view the self as the basic unit of survival, and are less affected even if harmony is not guaranteed. On the basis of this PC-as-moderator perspective, we expected that the effect of supervisor,subordinate personality similarity on the quality of service an employee delivers would be stronger among collectivists than among individualists. This hypothesis was tested with 605 front-line customer service staff and 113 supervisors, whose personality similarity was indexed by the number of personality items to which both parties gave the same answers. Although psychological collectivism does not have direct effect on service quality, regression analysis shows that it interacts with personality similarity, lending further support to the PC-as-moderator model. [source]


Diversity of Interactions: A Metric for Studies of Biodiversity

BIOTROPICA, Issue 3 2010
Lee A. Dyer
ABSTRACT Multitrophic interactions play key roles in the origin and maintenance of species diversity, and the study of these interactions has contributed to important theoretical advances in ecology and evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, most biodiversity inventories focus on static species lists, and prominent theories of diversity still ignore trophic interactions. The lack of a simple interaction metric that is analogous to species richness is one reason why diversity of interactions is not examined as a response or predictor variable in diversity studies. Using plant,herbivore,enemy trophic chains as an example, we develop a simple metric of diversity in which richness, diversity indices (e.g., Simpson's 1/D), and rarefaction diversity are calculated with links as the basic unit rather than species. Interactions include all two-link (herbivore,plant and enemy,herbivore) and three-link (enemy,herbivore,plant) chains found in a study unit. This metric is different from other indices, such as traditional diversity measures, connectivity and interaction diversity in food-web studies, and the diversity of interaction index in behavioral studies, and it is easier to compute. Using this approach to studying diversity provides novel insight into debates about neutrality and correlations between diversity, stability, productivity, and ecosystem services. Abstract in Spanish is available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/btp [source]


Nucleosome Immobilization Strategies for Single-Pair FRET Microscopy,

CHEMPHYSCHEM, Issue 14 2008
Wiepke J. A. Koopmans
Abstract All genomic transactions in eukaryotes take place in the context of the nucleosome, the basic unit of chromatin, which is responsible for DNA compaction. Overcoming the steric hindrance that nucleosomes present for DNA-processing enzymes requires significant conformational changes. The dynamics of these have been hard to resolve. Single-pair Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (spFRET) microscopy is a powerful technique for observing conformational dynamics of the nucleosome. Nucleosome immobilization allows the extension of observation times to a limit set only by photobleaching, and thus opens the possibility of studying processes occurring on timescales ranging from milliseconds to minutes. It is crucial however, that immobilization itself does not introduce artifacts in the dynamics. Here we report on various nucleosome immobilization strategies, such as single-point attachment to polyethylene glycol (PEG) or surfaces coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA), and confinement in porous agarose or polyacrylamide gels. We compare the immobilization specificity and structural integrity of immobilized nucleosomes. A crosslinked star polyethylene glycol coating performs best with respect to tethering specificity and nucleosome integrity, and enables us to reproduce for the first time bulk nucleosome unwrapping kinetics in single nucleosomes without immobilization artifacts. [source]


Systematic lumped-parameter models for foundations based on polynomial-fraction approximation

EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, Issue 7 2002
Wen-Hwa Wu
Abstract Based on the approximation by polynomial-fraction, a series of systematic lumped-parameter models are developed in this paper for efficiently representing the dynamic behaviour of unbounded soil. Concise formulation is first employed to represent the dynamic flexibility function of foundation with a ratio of two polynomials. By defining an appropriate quadratic error function, the optimal coefficients of the polynomials can be directly solved from a system of linear equations. Through performing partial-fraction expansion on this polynomial-fraction and designing two basic discrete-element models corresponding to the partial fractions, systematic lumped-parameter models can be conveniently established by connecting these basic units in series. Since the systematic lumped-parameter models are configured without introducing any mass, the foundation input motion can be directly applied to these models for their applications to the analysis of seismic excitation. The effectiveness of these new models is strictly validated by successfully simulating a semi-infinite bar on an elastic foundation. Subsequently, these models are applied for representing the dynamic stiffness functions for different types of foundation. Comparison of the new models with the other existing lumped-parameter models is also made to illustrate their advantages in requiring fewer parameters and featuring a more systematic expansion. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The concept and status of trait in research on temperament

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 4 2001
Jan Strelau
The aim of the paper is to show that research on temperament is inescapably bound with the concept of trait as applied in personality research. It is the individual differences approach on which temperament studies are based, and traits are the basic units by means of which these differences are described. Taking as a point of departure the definition of trait understood as a relatively stable and individual-specific generalized tendency to behave or react in a certain way expressed in a variety of situations, the hypothetical status of temperament traits is discussed. Special attention is paid to states and behaviour by means of which temperament traits are inferred as well as to the biological and environmental determinants of these traits. Temperamental traits constitute only a part of the personality structure viewed from the perspective of individual differences and this perspective is only one of the many from which the complex nature of personality should be viewed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Spatial patterns of disparity and diversity of the Recent cuttlefishes (Cephalopoda) across the Old World

JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 8 2003
Pascal Neige
Abstract Aim Diversity and disparity metrics of all Recent cuttlefishes are studied at the macroevolutionary scale (1) to establish the geographical biodiversity patterns of these cephalopods at the species level and (2) to explore the relationships between these two metrics. Location Sampling uses what is known about these tropical, subtropical and warm temperate cephalopods of the Old World based on a literature review and on measurements of museum specimens. Some 111 species spread across seventeen biogeographical areas serve as basic units for exploring diversity and disparity metrics in space. Methods Landmarks describe the shape of the cuttlebone (the inner shell of the sepiids) and differences between shapes are quantified using relative warp analyses. Relative warps are thus used as the morphological axis for constructing morphospaces whose characteristics are described by disparity indices: total variance, range, and minimum and maximum of relative warps. These are analysed and then compared with the diversity (species richness) metric. Results Results show no significant latitudinal or longitudinal gradients either for diversity or for disparity. Around the coast of southern Africa, disparity is high regardless of whether diversity (species richness) is high or low. In the ,East Indies' area disparity is low despite the high diversity. Main conclusions The relationship between diversity and disparity is clearly not linear and no simple adjustment models seem to fit. The number of species in a given area does not predict its disparity level. The particular pattern of southern Africa may be the result of paleogeographical changes since the Eocene, whereas that of the ,East Indies' may indicate that this area could act as a centre of origin. However, the lack of any clear phylogenetical hypothesis precludes the study from providing any explanation of the observed patterns. [source]


Physicochemical Properties, Firmness, and Nanostructures of Sodium Carbonate-Soluble Pectin of 2 Chinese Cherry Cultivars at 2 Ripening Stages

JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 6 2008
Lifen Zhang
ABSTRACT:, Firmness and physicochemical properties of 2 Chinese cherry (Prunus pseudocerasus L.) cultivars (soft cultivar "Caode" and crisp cultivar "Bende") at unripe and ripe stages were investigated, and the qualitative and quantitative information about sodium carbonate-soluble pectin (SSP) nanostructures was determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The lengths and widths of the cherry SSPs are very regular: almost all of the widths and lengths of SSP single molecules are composed of several basic units. The widths of the SSP chains are 37, 47, 55, and 61 nm, and the lengths are 123, 202, and 380 nm in both cultivars. The results show that the firmer cherry groups (crisp fruit) contain more percentages of wide and short SSP chains than soft fruit, and the unripe groups contain more percentages of wide and long SSP chains than corresponding ripe groups. They indicate that those nanostructural characteristics of SSP are closely related with firmness of the Chinese cherries in each cultivar. [source]


Structure of Disodium Dimolybdate Synthesized Using Thermodynamically Stable Molybdenum (VI) Oxide Clusters as Precursors

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Issue 10 2009
Dragana J. Jovanovi
The structure of disodium dimolybdate (Na2Mo2O7) synthesized by a low-temperature method in the process of ultrasonic spray pyrolysis using acidified aqueous solutions of thermodynamically stable molybdenum (VI) oxide clusters as a precursor was refined down to an R -factor of 7%. The refinement of the diffraction data showed that Na2Mo2O7 powder synthesized at 300°C belongs to the base-centered orthorhombic type of structure with a space group of Cmca (no. 64). It was found that the basic units of the octahedral MoO6 precursor complexes exist in the structure of Na2Mo2O7. Tetrahedral MoO4 building units that coexist together with octahedral units in the structure of Na2Mo2O7 are most likely developed by the termination of weak octahedral bonds and by the placement of the molybdenum atom in the center of the tetrahedra. [source]


Lithium barium silicate, Li2BaSiO4, from synchrotron powder data

ACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION C, Issue 4 2009
Jinyoung Kim
The structure of lithium barium silicate, Li2BaSiO4, has been determined from synchrotron radiation powder data. The title compound was synthesized by high-temperature solid-state reaction and crystallizes in the hexagonal space group P63cm. It contains two Li atoms, one Ba atom (both site symmetry ..m on special position 6c), two Si atoms [on special positions 4b (site symmetry 3..) and 2a (site symmetry 3.m)] and four O atoms (one on general position 12d, and three on special positions 6c, 4b and 2a). The basic units of the structure are (Li6SiO13)5, units, each comprising seven tetrahedra sharing edges and vertices. These basic units are connected by sharing corners parallel to [001] and through sharing (SiO4)4, tetrahedra in (001). The relationship between the structures and luminescence properties of Li2SrSiO4, Li2CaSiO4 and the title compound is discussed. [source]