BACKGROUND Although natural resources play a central role in rural livelihoods across the globe, little research has explored the relationship between migration and natural capital use, particularly in combination with other livelihood capitals (i.e., human, social, financial and physical). OBJECTIVE Grounded in the rural livelihood framework, this paper explores the association between the l...

Land degradation in drylands is the process in which undesirable conditions emerge due to human and natural causes. Despite the particularly deleterious effects of degradation, and it’s potentially irreversible nature, regional assessments have provided conflicting extents, rates, and severities of degradation, both globally and regionally. Current monitoring of degradation relies upon the dete...

Introduction: Motor skills and learning after stroke are of a great importance. This study aimed at studying implicit learning in unilateral stroke patients using affected hand and comparison with normal subjects. Methods: A serial reaction time task by using a software was applied for studying implicit motor learning in 15 stroke patients and 15 matched normal subjects. In this task 4 squar...

Broad-scale animal diversity patterns have been traditionally explained by hypotheses focused on climate-energy and habitat heterogeneity, without considering the direct influence of vegetation structure and composition. However, integrating these factors when considering plant-animal correlates still poses a major challenge because plant communities are controlled by abiotic factors that may, ...

Communities of plant-parasitic nematodes collected from five different vegetation types (canopy woodland, savannah, gallery forest, cultivated perennial, and annual plants) and soils (yellowish red latosols, dark red latosols, arenosols, acrisols, and gleysols) were studied. Ninety percent of the soil samples collected from savannah contained at least four genera of plant-parasitic nematodes. T...

which evidently has the required property. In [1], a similar example is given for]F109* It is implicit in [1], [12], that such sequences exist in 3Fp if ~Fp contains a so-called Fibonacci Primitive Root, or FPR: see below for definitions. Here we show (Theorem 4.2) that such sequences exist in Wp if and only if Wp contains an FPR; moreover, when Wp does contain an FPR, we show that the only suc...

We give a simple model for interferences occurring in 2-D patterned media for magnetic recording. We investigate some constraints induced from the model. We also give an encoding algorithm for the constraints which works well with minor exceptions.

In this paper various layered planar periodic structures which provide miniaturization of planar antennas are proposed and discussed. The proposed designs are based on two concepts, reactive impedance surfaces and complementary periodic structures. In the proposed structures, complementary periodic rings and slots are patterned on the intermediate boundaries of the dielectric layers. A patch an...

Satellite photo-comparisons indicate extensive expansion of alder (Alnus) shrubs since 1968 within tundra ecotones near Kharp in northwest Siberia. Field observations reveal that nearly all expansion occurred on exposed circles in patterned ground. We mapped the location of alders and circles and measured surface organic thickness, mineral soil thickness, nearsurface soil temperature, shrub hei...

The genesis of some types of patterned ground, including hummocks, frost boils and sorted stone circles, has been attributed to differential frost heave (DFH). However, a theoretical model that adequately describes DFH has yet to be developed and validated. In this paper, we present a mathematical model for the initiation of DFH, and discuss how variations in physical (i.e. soil/vegetation prop...