Plant Hormones: Biosynthesis and Mechanisms of Action is based on research funded by the Chinese government's National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). This book brings a fresh understanding of hormone biology, particularly molecular mechanisms driving plant hormone actions. With growing understanding of hormone biology comes new outlooks on how mankind values and utilizes the built-in potential of plants for improvement of crops in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. This book is a comprehensive description of all major plant hormones: how they are synthesized and catabolized; how they are perceived by plant cells; how they trigger signal transduction; how they regulate gene expression; how they regulate plant growth, development and defense responses; and how we measure plant hormones. This is an exciting time for researchers interested in plant hormones. Plants rely on a diverse set of small molecule hormones to regulate every aspect of their biological processes including development, growth, and adaptation. Since the discovery of the first plant hormone auxin, hormones have always been the frontiers of plant biology. Although the physiological functions of most plant hormones have been studied for decades, the last 15 to 20 years have seen a dramatic progress in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of hormone actions. The publication of the whole genome sequences of the model systems of Arabidopsis and rice, together with the advent of multidisciplinary approaches has opened the door to successful experimentation on plant hormone actions.

In this provocative book, acclaimed psychologists Thomas Ward, Ronald Finke, and Steven Smith eloquently portray the fascinating processes of the creative mind at work, and hand us the invaluable tools with which we can mine our most valued and important resource. Creativity - and the methods by which we can heighten it - has recently become the focus of a burgeoning and exciting new field in psychology. By skillfully blending this cutting-edge scientific research with the real-world experiences of humanity's most successful creative thinkers, this provocative book isolates the mechanisms by which our mind conceives innovative and creative ideas. Since all creative thoughts emerge from skillfully drawing upon the well of knowledge we already possess, this book tackles the very nature of this knowledge. As these astute authors convincingly argue, the same mental processes that help a chemist like Kary Mullis discover a revolutionary new scientific principle or inspire an artist like Beethoven to create a marvelous symphony underlie the host of creative endeavors we all undertake. This inspiring book applies these basic tenets to a rich variety of creative pursuits, including engineering, design, writing, business, science, art, and even the challenges of our everyday lives. We learn how best to combine and play with the images, words, and concepts that spark fertile new ideas and lead to ever more impressive creative leaps.

Spontaneous resting-state fluctuations in neuronal activity offer insights into the inherent organization of the human brain, and may provide markers for diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to investigate intrinsic functional connectivity networks, which are identified based on similarities in the signal measured from different brain regions. From data acquisition to interpretation of results, Introduction to Resting State fMRI Functional Connectivity discusses a wide range of approaches without requiring any previous knowledge of resting state fMRI, making it highly accessible to readers from a broad range of backgrounds. Supplemented with online datasets and examples to enable the reader to obtain hands-on experience working with real data, this primer provides a practical and approachable introduction for those new to the field of resting state fMRI. The Oxford Neuroimaging Primers are short texts aimed at new researchers or advanced undergraduates from the biological, medical or physical sciences. They are intended to provide a thorough understanding of the ways in which neuroimaging data can be analyzed and how that relates to acquisition and interpretation. Each primer has been written so that it is a stand-alone introduction to a particular area of neuroimaging, and the primers also work together to provide a comprehensive foundation for this increasingly influential field.

Creative Cognition combines original experiments with existing work in cognitive psychology to provide the first explicit account of the cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative thinking and discovery. Creative Cognition combines original experiments with existing work in cognitive psychology to provide the first explicit account of the cognitive processes and structures that contribute to creative thinking and discovery. In separate chapters, the authors take up visualization, concept formation, categorization, memory retrieval, and problem solving. They describe novel experimental methods for studying creative cognitive processes under controlled laboratory conditions, along with techniques that can be used to generate many different types of inventions and concepts. Unlike traditional approaches, Creative Cognition considers creativity as a product of numerous cognitive processes, each of which helps to set the stage for insight and discovery. It identifies many of these processes as well as general principles of creative cognition that can be applied across a variety of different domains, with examples in artificial intelligence, engineering design, product development, architecture, education, and the visual arts. Following a summary of previous approaches to creativity, the authors present a theoretical model of the creative process. They review research involving an innovative imagery recombination technique, developed by Finke, that clearly demonstrates that creative inventions can be induced in the laboratory. They then describe experiments in category learning that support the provocative claim that the factors constraining category formation similarly constrain imagination and illustrate the role of various memory processes and other strategies in creative problem solving.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the scanning technique which allows the mapping of active processes within the brain.

There are six sections to the book with chapters from an expert international team. Part I provides a broad overview of the field and sets the context. Part II describes the physiological and physical background to fMRI, including coverage of the hardware required and pulse sequence selection. Practical issues involving experimental design of the paradigms, psycho-physical stimulus delivery and subject response are covered in Part III, followed by a comprehensive treatment of data analysis in Part IV. Part V deals with practical applications of the technique in the field of neuroscience and in clinical practice. The final section describes how fMRI can be integrated with other neuro-electromagnetic functional mapping techniques.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: An Introduction to Methods is written to be accessible to a wide-ranging audience of research scientists interested in studying how the normal brain works, and clinicians interested in monitoring disease states and processes.

Background and History Although Cape Cod National Seashore (CACO) is perhaps best known for its shoreline scenery, the interior forests and woodlands have become the most prominent feature of this coastal landscape. In the period before European settlement, Cape Cod was covered largely by pine-oak forests, interspersed with smaller areas of hickory (Carya spp.), beech (Fagus grandifolia), red maple (Acer rubrum), and birch (Betula spp.) (Motzkin et al. 2002). In the 18th and 19th centuries, much of Cape Cod consisted of open heathlands and grasslands created and maintained primarily by the agricultural practices of early settlers that included cutting, grazing, and burning (Eberhardt 2001, Eberhardt et al. 2003). The cessation of these activities by the mid-1800's allowed trees to re-invade the landscape (Patterson et al. 1983, Motzkin et al. 2002, Parshall et al. 2003), and forests now occupy the largest land-surface area and biovolume of any vegetation community (Figure 1).

In 2011, monitoring was conducted to follow up on a 2005 survey of dune vegetation habitat and for continued development of a long-term vegetation monitoring protocol for this ecosystem. In 2005, thirty vegetation sampling sites were established in what was then dune grassland habitat throughout Cape Cod National Seashore (CACO), arranged along seven transects running perpendicular to the coastline from Chatham to Provincetown. Each site consisted of two 10x10-m plots. In addition to distance from coastline, sites were characterized by integrating GIS technology to assess landscape changes and succession.

This paper begins with a twentieth century look at multilateralism in East Asia by examining a wealth of expert historical and contemporary analysis. Next, a potential multilateral framework is presented with an analysis of the associated benefits and complexities related to the concept. The key issue of reunification is also revealed, specifically whether a DPRK government collapse would equal immediate reunification. Finally, this study concludes with a look at the implications of using multilateralism in dealing with this crisis to future U.S. interests in Northeast Asia.