Maintaining good soil productivity in rice paddies is important for global food security. Numerous methods have been developed to evaluate paddy soil productivity (PSP), most based on soil physiochemical properties and relatively few on biological indices. Here, we used a long-term dataset from experiments on paddy fields at eight county sites and a short-term dataset from a single field experi...

The logarithmic nature of the allometric equation suggests that metabolic rate scaling is related to some fractal properties of the organism. Two universal models have been proposed, based on (1) the fractal design of the vasculature and (2) the fractal nature of the 'total effective surface' of mitochondria and capillaries. According to these models, basal and maximal metabolic rates must scal...

A fundamental function of the respiratory system is the supply of oxygen to meet metabolic demand. Morphological constraints on the supply of oxygen, such as the structure of the lung, have previously been studied in birds. Recent research has shown that uncinate processes (UP) are important respiratory structures in birds, facilitating inspiratory and expiratory movements of the ribs and stern...

Recycling schemes are being used worldwide to reduce the impact of municipal waste. Those using public funds are usually obliged to set performance indicators by which the standards of such schemes can be measured. In the UK, a set of statutory Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI) must be reported annually, such as the Quality of Fair Access, which monitors the public's access to recycling ...

A key element in the construction of a physician fee schedule is the underlying relative value scale (RVS). The focus in this article is on the development and comparison of RVS's based on alternative data sources and construction methods. Results suggest that medical procedures' values are preserved across alternative charge-based RVS's. Some differences are observed, however, when comparing p...

Humans often slow down after mistakes (post-error slowing [PES]), but the neural mechanism and adaptive role of PES remain controversial. We studied changes in the neural mechanisms of decision making after errors in humans and monkeys that performed a motion direction discrimination task. We found that PES is mediated by two factors: a reduction in sensitivity to sensory information and an inc...

In Table 2, the matched and unmatched samples and their values have been combined. Please see the correct Table 2 here. Copyright: © 2015 Arriagada et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.