Although cold hardiness is known to be a major determinant of tree species distribution, its dynamics and the factors that regulate it remain poorly understood. Variation in cold hardiness and carbohydrate concentration, from dormancy induction until bud burst, were investigated in populations of two deciduous (Quercus robur L. and Quercus pubescens Willd.) and one evergreen (Quercus ilex L.) E...

The temporal dynamics of dew formation in cold desert-shrub ecosystems are still poorly understood. We examined dew and its abiotic controls in a shrubland in northwestern China with continuous eddy-covariance measurements of latent heat fluxes gathered over the growing-season of 2012. The dew amount was larger in mid-summer than in spring and autumn, but the dew duration was shorter in summer ...

It is often asserted that secondary forests (SF) provide inferior forest-based ecosystem services (ES), but there limited research to generalize this claim. Here, we review comparisons between ES provision in SFs and other land uses shifting cultivation landscapes. We searched the peer-reviewed literature selected only studies compare from SF with uses. In total, 212 347 of different use system...

Phytoplasmas cannot be cultivated in vitro, and remain the most poorly understood plant pathogens. Despite this limitation, the investigation of their nature with the aid of modern tools has produced noteworthy results during the last 20 years. Using biochemical and molecular approaches, the phylogeny of the phytoplasmas has been described, their chromosomal and extrachromosomal components are ...

Incremental search algorithms, such as D* Lite, reuse information from previous searches to speed up the current search and can thus solve sequences of similar search problems faster than Repeated A*, which performs repeated A* searches. In this position paper, we study goal-directed navigation in initially unknown terrain and point out that it is currently not well understood when D* Lite runs...

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This review article discusses the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) in support of a total diet approach to achieving diet and health goals, especially as they relate to the obesity epidemic. However, some scientists and organizations have identified one food, food group, or nutrient as the cause of the obesity epidemic and recommend that simply reducing that food/food group/nutrient will s...

BACKGROUND Pseudomyxoma peritonei is an uncommon condition with an estimated incidence of one to two per million (worldwide) per year. It is characterized by the peritoneal deposition of mucinous tumors, most commonly of the appendix, and occasionally from the ovary, coupled by mucinous ascites. CASE PRESENTATION We report the case of a 76-year-old woman who presented with increased abdominal...