PADAPT 1.0 - the Pannonian Dataset of Plant Traits.

The existing plant trait databases' applicability is limited for studies dealing with the flora and vegetation of the eastern and central part of Europe and for large-scale comparisons across regions, mostly because their geographical data coverage is limited and they incorporate records from several different sources, often from regions with markedly different climatic conditions. These problems motivated the compilation of a regional dataset for the flora of the Pannonian region (Eastern Central Europe). PADAPT, the Pannonian Dataset of Plant Traits relies on regional data sources and collates data on 54 traits and attributes of the plant species of the Pannonian region. The current version covers approximately 90% of the species of the region and consists of 126,337 records on 2745 taxa. By including species of the eastern part of Europe not covered by other databases, PADAPT can facilitate studying the flora and vegetation of the eastern part of the continent. Although data coverage is far from complete, PADAPT meets the longstanding need for a regional database of the Pannonian flora.

Initial Validation of the Mindful Presence Scale: The Issue of the Construal Level of Scale Items.

Our research has two main aims. It undertakes the validation of a six-item trait mindfulness scale called Mindful Presence Scale (MPS), which measures central aspects of mindfulness. For the first time in mindfulness literature, the construal level of scale items is also examined. Four questionnaire-based online studies were conducted. Study 1 drew three samples (n n = 391, n p = 215, and n b = 235) from the students at the University of Debrecen. It examined the factor structure, reliability, and internal consistency of the three differently worded scale versions. The positively worded scale version (MPSp) yielded a stable two-factor structure and demonstrated the best psychometric properties. Study 2 performed a confirmatory factor analysis on a sample drawn from public employees across the country (n cfa = 420). The two-factor solution in Study 1 was confirmed. χ2 tests were not significant, and fit indices were excellent. There was no significant difference between the high-level construal subscale (Fhlc) and the low-level construal subscale (Fllc) in terms of factorial stability. Participant of Study 3 were students who did not take part in Study 1. The sample (n inv = 250) was tested for measurement invariance across gender. The scaled results supported strong/threshold invariance. Study 4 tested concurrent validity with 10 concurrent instruments. A sample of secondary school teachers (n con = 128) was tested by examining Spearman's rank order correlations. There was a significant difference in how the Fhlc and Fllc subscales predicted scores of some of the concurrent instruments. Further research is warranted into how the construal level of mindfulness scale items affects the recollection of the mindful experience. Overall, MPSp proved to be a valid short mindfulness measure.

Animacy perception in dogs (Canis familiaris) and humans (Homo sapiens): Comparison may be perturbed by inherent differences in looking patterns.

Perceptual animacy is the tendency for observers to represent inanimate objects as animate, based on simple motion cues. Several features of the chasing pattern can elicit animacy perception and, similarly to adult humans, dogs perceive dots showing this pattern as animate. Here, we used moving objects with a heading alignment (isosceles triangles) to investigate whether human and dog behavior continues to show similarities following such slight but important change in the pattern. We hypothesized that a heading alignment would facilitate animacy perception in both species in a similar manner. We displayed chasing and nonchasing (independent) motions side-by-side on a screen in two subsequent trials (Trial 1 and 2). Looking duration at each pattern as well as frequency of gaze shifting between the patterns was measured. Humans looked at the independent motion for longer already during Trial 1; however, dogs looked at this pattern longer only during Trial 2, whereas during Trial 1, their looking time increased toward the chasing pattern. Gaze shifting was observed in humans more often in both trials than in dogs. Although ultimate preference for the independent motion suggests rapid perception of the chasing pattern directing gaze in both species toward the "unrecognized" pattern, there was an initial interspecies difference. We suggest that different behavior across humans and dogs could be explained by ecological differences, although the role of differences in visual strategies, irrespective of perception of animacy, cannot be excluded. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Reversible control of magnetism in FeRh thin films.

The multilayer of approximate structure MgO(100)/[nFe51Rh49(63 Å)/57Fe51Rh49(46 Å)]10 deposited at 200 °C is primarily of paramagnetic A1 phase and is fully converted to the magnetic B2 phase by annealing at 300 °C for 60 min. Subsequent irradiation by 120 keV Ne+ ions turns the thin film completely to the paramagnetic A1 phase. Repeated annealing at 300 °C for 60 min results in 100% magnetic B2 phase, i.e. a process that appears to be reversible at least twice. The A1 → B2 transformation takes place without any plane-perpendicular diffusion while Ne+ irradiation results in significant interlayer mixing.

Silhouette width using generalized mean-A flexible method for assessing clustering efficiency.

Cluster analysis plays vital role in pattern recognition in several fields of science. Silhouette width is a widely used index for assessing the fit of individual objects in the classification, as well as the quality of clusters and the entire classification. Silhouette combines two clustering criteria, compactness and separation, which imply that spherical cluster shapes are preferred over others-a property that can be seen as a disadvantage in the presence of complex, nonspherical clusters, which is common in real situations. We suggest a generalization of the silhouette width using the generalized mean. By changing the p parameter of the generalized mean between -∞ and +∞, several specific summary statistics, including the minimum, maximum, the arithmetic, harmonic, and geometric means, can be reproduced. Implementing the generalized mean in the calculation of silhouette width allows for changing the sensitivity of the index to compactness versus connectedness. With higher sensitivity to connectedness, the preference of silhouette width toward spherical clusters should reduce. We test the performance of the generalized silhouette width on artificial data sets and on the Iris data set. We examine how classifications with different numbers of clusters prepared by different algorithms are evaluated, if p is set to different values. When p was negative, well-separated clusters achieved high silhouette widths despite their elongated or circular shapes. Positive values of p increased the importance of compactness; hence, the preference toward spherical clusters became even more detectable. With low p, single linkage clustering was deemed the most efficient clustering method, while with higher parameter values the performance of group average, complete linkage, and beta flexible with beta = -0.25 seemed better. The generalized silhouette allows for adjusting the contribution of compactness and connectedness criteria, thus avoiding underestimation of clustering efficiency in the presence of clusters with high internal heterogeneity.

Synergistic effects of the components of global change: Increased vegetation dynamics in open, forest-steppe grasslands driven by wildfires and year-to-year precipitation differences.

Climate change and land use change are two major elements of human-induced global environmental change. In temperate grasslands and woodlands, increasing frequency of extreme weather events like droughts and increasing severity of wildfires has altered the structure and dynamics of vegetation. In this paper, we studied the impact of wildfires and the year-to-year differences in precipitation on species composition changes in semi-arid grasslands of a forest-steppe complex ecosystem which has been partially disturbed by wildfires. Particularly, we investigated both how long-term compositional dissimilarity changes and species richness are affected by year-to-year precipitation differences on burnt and unburnt areas. Study sites were located in central Hungary, in protected areas characterized by partially-burnt, juniper-poplar forest-steppe complexes of high biodiversity. Data were used from two long-term monitoring sites in the Kiskunság National Park, both characterized by the same habitat complex. We investigated the variation in species composition as a function of time using distance decay methodology. In each sampling area, compositional dissimilarity increased with the time elapsed between the sampling events, and species richness differences increased with increasing precipitation differences between consecutive years. We found that both the long-term compositional dissimilarity, and the year-to-year changes in species richness were higher in the burnt areas than in the unburnt ones. The long-term compositional dissimilarities were mostly caused by perennial species, while the year-to-year changes of species richness were driven by annual and biennial species. As the effect of the year-to-year variation in precipitation was more pronounced in the burnt areas, we conclude that canopy removal by wildfires and extreme inter-annual variability of precipitation, two components of global environmental change, act in a synergistic way. They enhance the effect of one another, resulting in greater long-term and year-to-year changes in the composition of grasslands.