In bootstrapping (seed set expansion), selecting good seeds and creating stop lists are two effective ways to reduce semantic drift, but these methods generally need human supervision. In this paper, we propose a graphbased approach to helping editors choose effective seeds and stop list instances, applicable to Pantel and Pennacchiotti’s Espresso bootstrapping algorithm. The idea is to select ...

This research explores the causes of dealer demand amplification leading to a high volume of seed returns in a typical agribusiness supply chain. Seed production occurs months in advance of grower demand, resulting in a limited supply of specific seeds. To hedge against shortages, dealers inflate orders. If demand materializes, dealers benefit from their inflationary behavior. If it does not, t...

To provide more insights into the responses of the soil seed bank and vegetation to human disturbance intensity, we selected four land use types, including: native grassland (no human disturbance), abandoned artificial grassland (light human disturbance), artificial grassland (moderate human disturbance), and farmland (severe human disturbance) in a semi-arid climate of northern China. The spec...

Seed banking remains a cornerstone in the conservation of plant genetic resources. To be successful, it relies on the collecting and banking of high-quality seeds. In 1995 there was relatively little guidance available to seed collectors (especially of wild plant species), who had to make decisions in the field about what to collect and how to handle collected material. Since then, research int...

—Pocket gophers have the potential to alter the dynamics of grasslands by creating mounds that bury existing vegetation and locally reset succession. Gopher mounds may provide safe sites for less competitive species, potentially increasing both species diversity and vegetation heterogeneity (spatial variation in species composition). We compared species composition, diversity and heterogeneity ...

Use of improved seeds has a vital role in enhancing agricultural production. Agriculture extension has implemented farmers’ managed seed multiplication program at the community level to ensure efficient supply of improved seeds. Several success and failure cases of seed multiplication through farmers' organizations were experienced. Therefore, a case study was conducted in the western terai reg...

Immigration rates of species into communities are widely understood to influence community diversity, which in turn is widely expected to influence the susceptibility of ecosystems to species invasion. For a given community, however, immigration processes may impact diversity by means of two separable components: the number of species represented in seed inputs and the density of seed per speci...