Land degradation usually leads to the loss of ecosystem services, which may threaten social well-being. There is no approach identify and manage all services based on their importance in processes systems. This study aimed link well-being order assess rangeland degradation. Eleven (forage production, water yield, edible plants, fuel, medicinal pollination, gas regulation, soil resistivity erosi...

where ∑ ~n is the sum over all lattice vectors ~n = (Lxnx, Lyny, Lznz), nx,y,z ∈ N and Lx,y,z are the dimensions of the unit MD cell and ~xij = ~xj − ~xi. The “daggered” (†) summation indicates the exclusion of all pairs i = j inside the original unit MD cell (~n = ~0). Most molecular force fields provide exclusion schemes to exclude additional pairs, e.g., the so-called 1-3 exclusion excludes ...

From December 2012 standardised packaging for tobacco products – known as ‘plain packaging’ – has been mandatory in Australia. This paper evaluates the preliminary evidence – in the form of ABS household expenditure on tobacco data – to establish whether the policy has been successful. Despite our econometric efforts, the data refused to yield any indication this policy has been successful; the...

A vast majority of the emails received by people today are machinegenerated by businesses communicating with consumers. While some emails originate as a result of a transaction (e.g., hotel or restaurant reservation confirmations, online purchase receipts, shipping notifications, etc.), a large fraction are commercial emails promoting an offer (a special sale, free shipping, available for a lim...

AIMS To gain insight into the potential impact of plain tobacco packaging policy, two experiments were undertaken to test whether 'prototype' plain compared with branded UK cigarette pack stimuli would differentially elicit instrumental tobacco-seeking in a nominal Pavlovian to instrumental transfer (PIT) procedure. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Two experiments were undertaken at the Unive...

BACKGROUND Pelvic ring injury classification traditionally is made using plain radiographs. Recent studies suggest that computed tomography (CT)-generated images have higher diagnostic accuracy than plain films for the classification of acetabular fractures. However, similar studies have not been performed for pelvic ring injuries. The purpose of this study was to compare CT-generated and plain...

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES The objective of the study was to provide useful insights into plain water intake of Korean adults according to life style, anthropometric, and dietary characteristics. SUBJECTS/METHODS The data from the 2008-2010 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used. The subjects were 14,428 aged 20-64 years. Water intake was estimated by asking the question ...

INTRODUCTION Low fetuin-A and vitamin D and high monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) contents are associated with vascular calcification (VC) in dialysis patients. We aimed to demonstrate the difference in fetuin-A, vitamin D, MUFA, and VC on plain radiography between patients on hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis (PD). MATERIALS AND METHODS We recruited 31 hemodialysis and 30 PD patients. We...

BACKGROUND Previous research on the effects of plain packaging has largely relied on self-report measures. Here we describe the protocol of a randomized controlled trial investigating the effect of the plain packaging of cigarettes on smoking behavior in a real-world setting. METHODS/DESIGN In a parallel group randomization design, 128 daily cigarette smokers (50% male, 50% female) will atten...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to compare the utility of plain radiographs to multislice computed tomography (MCT) for cervical spine (c-spine) evaluation. We hypothesized that plain radiographs add no clinically relevant diagnostic information to MCT in the screening evaluation of the c-spine of trauma patients. METHODS This was a prospective, unblinded, consecutive series of inj...