The methodology used to construct tree structured rules is the focus of this monograph. Unlike many other statistical procedures, which moved from pencil and paper to calculators, this text's use of trees was unthinkable before computers. Both the practical and theoretical sides have been developed in the authors' study of tree methods. Classification and Regression Trees reflects these two sides, covering the use of trees as a data analysis method, and in a more mathematical framework, proving some of their fundamental properties.

Classification and regression trees

A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

/pdf/agricultural-sustainability-and-intensive-production-1h98l920tu.pdf

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

http://abe.ufl.edu/Faculty/jjones/ABE_5646/Xtra%20files/The%20DSSAT%20Cropping%20System%20Model.pdf

The DSSAT cropping system model

ASREML user guide release 3.0

Global climate change impacts can already be tracked in many physical and biological systems; in particular, terrestrial ecosystems provide a consistent picture of observed changes. One of the preferred indicators is phenology, the science of natural recurring events, as their recorded dates provide a high-temporal resolution of ongoing changes. Thus, numerous analyses have demonstrated an earlier onset of spring events for mid and higher latitudes and a lengthening of the growing season. However, published single-site or single-species studies are particularly open to suspicion of being biased towards predominantly reporting climate change-induced impacts. No comprehensive study or meta-analysis has so far examined the possible lack of evidence for changes or shifts at sites where no temperature change is observed. We used an enormous systematic phenological network data set of more than 125 000 observational series of 542 plant and 19 animal species in 21 European countries (1971–2000). Our results showed that 78% of all leafing, flowering and fruiting records advanced (30% significantly) and only 3% were significantly delayed, whereas the signal of leaf colouring/fall is ambiguous. We conclude that previously published results of phenological changes were not biased by reporting or publication predisposition: the average advance of spring/summer was 2.5 days decade � 1 in Europe. Our analysis of 254 mean national time series undoubtedly demonstrates that species’ phenology is responsive to temperature of the preceding

/pdf/european-phenological-response-to-climate-change-matches-the-3dr30qvjfp.pdf

European phenological response to climate change matches the warming pattern

Genstat 5 Release 4.1 reference manual supplement

Anholocyclic Myzus persicae (Sulz.) from the glasshouse and field can be classified into six variants, each with a characteristic carboxylesterase activity and consequent resistance to carbamate and organophosphorus insecticides. Overlapping activity distributions prevent unequivocal identification of an individual from measurements of its enzyme activity, but this may be done by cloning and measuring the frequency distribution of the enzyme activity in its progeny. Although each of the four lowest esterase variants has a frequency distribution with a single peak, only the susceptible (USLL) is best described by a single Normal distribution. Those of the other three clones (MSIG, French R and T1V) correspond better with two Normally-distributed components. However, these are not well separated and the lower component accounts for only 10-25% of the individuals. The very resistant clones from glasshouses have higher mean activities but with very broad distributions covering the whole range observed in this aphid. These broad distributions have peaks corresponding to those of the less resistant variants and arise from the appearance at each generation of a small proportion of individuals with much less active enzyme than their parents. Careful monitoring of the changes in activity between parents and offspring of the most resistant variant (clone G6) showed that complete loss of resistance can occur either in a single step or over several generations, and that below a threshold value, reversion to higher levels is very rare. Such reversion could only be detected by selection, with insecticide, of large clonal populations from an individual that had lost activity. High esterase activity was not stabilised by breeding for 16 generations only from individuals with high esterase activity, and is probably maintained in glasshouses by continuous exposure to insecticides. Spontaneous loss of esterase activity and resistance was observed only in glasshouse populations.

Stability of insecticide resistance in the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer)

GenStat release 6.1 reference manual. Part 2. Directives

Multiple randomizations - discussion on the paper by Brien and Bailey

SUMMARY The general method of analysis of variance described by Wilkinson (1970) is reviewed. The implementation of an algorithm based on this method is described with particular attention to the doubly linked binary tree used to store information about the design. WILKINSON (1970) described a general analysis-of-variance method which enables a single algorithm to analyse most common experimental designs. These designs include all ortho- gonal designs (possibly with several error terms), designs with balanced confounding and other designs with a specified pattern of confounding. The normal equations are not solved directly but by sequentially "sweeping" a working variate which initially contains the data values. The sweep operation calculates effects for a particular term of the linear model from the working variate and uses them to modify it as described below. The algorithm has been implemented as part of the Genstat system (Wilkinson and Rogers, 1974; Nelder et al., 1975). In this paper we review the methods of analysis, explaining how the necessary sequence of sweeps is determined automatically, so that the user only defines the error and treatment terms to be included (together with the treatment combinations applied to each experimental unit). We describe some of the facilities of the program, and how they are implemented, paying

R. W. Payne

Papers

Genstat 5 Release 4.1 reference manual supplement

Stability of insecticide resistance in the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer)

GenStat release 6.1 reference manual. Part 2. Directives

Multiple randomizations - discussion on the paper by Brien and Bailey

A General Algorithm for Analysis of Variance