A Multivariate Procedure for Comparing Mean Vectors for Populations with Unequal Regression Coefficient and Residual Covariance Matrices

In fisheries research there is a need to compare vectors of means of continuous random response variables adjusted for concomitant variations of covariables for populations that have unequal regression coefficient and residual covariance matrices. A multivariate procedure that provides an extended comparison of vectors of adjusted means is presented. An example is presented using a real data set. The procedure is quite general and applicable to many other fields of research.     

Positive Impact of Nutritional Interventions on Serum Symmetric Dimethylarginine and Creatinine Concentrations in Client-Owned Geriatric Cats

A prospective study was conducted in client-owned geriatric cats to evaluate the short- term effects of a test food on serum symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) and creatinine (Cr) concentrations. Test food contained functional lipids (fish oil), antioxidants (vitamins C and E), L-carnitine, botanicals (vegetables), highly bioavailable protein, and amino acid supplements. Cats (n = 80) were fed either test food or owner’s-choice foods (non-nutritionally controlled cohort). Cats were included based on age (≥ 9 years), indoor only, neutered, and free of chronic disease. At baseline, all cats had serum Cr concentrations within the reference interval. Renal function biomarkers and urinalysis results at baseline and after consuming test food or owner’s-choice foods for 3 and 6 months were evaluated. Cats consuming test food showed significant decreases in serum Cr and BUN concentrations across time. Overall, cats consuming owner’s-choice foods showed significant increases in serum SDMA concentrations at 3 and 6 months compared with baseline (P ≤ 0.05), whereas in cats consuming test food serum SDMA concentrations did not change. At baseline or during the 6-month feeding trial, 23 (28.8%) cats had increased serum SDMA, but normal serum Cr consistent with IRIS Stage 1 chronic kidney disease. This included 6 cats fed test food and 17 cats fed owner’s-choice foods. In the 6 cats fed test food, serum SDMA decreased in 3 cats and remained stable in 1 cat, whereas in the 17 cats fed owner’s-choice foods, serum SDMA increased in 13 cats and decreased or remained stable in 4 cats. The increase in serum SDMA concentration was significant (P = 0.02) only for cats fed owner’s-choice foods. These results suggest that nonazotemic cats with elevated serum SDMA (early renal insufficiency) when fed a food designed to promote healthy aging are more likely to demonstrate stable renal function compared with cats fed owner’s-choice foods. Cats fed owner’s-choice foods were more likely to demonstrate progressive renal insufficiency.     

A Multivariate Procedure for Linear Comparisons of Mean Vectors when Residual Covariance and Regression Coefficient Matrices are Unequal

A multivariate procedure for testing linear comparisons of vectors of adjusted group means of response (dependent) variables when groups differ in residual covariance and regression coefficient matrices is presented. Such disparities have been observed in investigations of trends in contaminant levels in fish. Application of the procedure is illustrated with data on Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua). The procedure is quite general and can be employed to test any linear comparisons.     

Positive Impact of Nutritional Interventions on Serum Symmetric Dimethylarginine and Creatinine Concentrations in Client-Owned Geriatric Dogs

A prospective study was conducted in client-owned geriatric dogs to evaluate the short-term effects of a test food on serum symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) and creatinine (Cr) concentrations. Test food contained functional lipids (fish oil), antioxidants (lipoic acid, vitamins C and E), L-carnitine, botanicals (fruits and vegetables), controlled sodium concentration, and high quality protein sources (high bioavailability and an ideal amino acid composition). Dogs (n = 210) were fed either test food or owner’s-choice foods (non-nutritionally controlled cohort). Dogs were included based on age and body weight: small (6.8 to 11.4 kg) and medium dogs (11.5 to 22.7 kg) were ≥ 9 years, whereas dogs >22.7 kg were ≥ 7 years at baseline. At baseline, all dogs had to have serum Cr concentrations within the reference interval and be free of chronic disease. Renal function biomarkers and urinalysis results at baseline, and after consuming test food or owner’s-choice foods for 3 and 6 months, were evaluated. Only dogs consuming test food showed significant decreases in serum SDMA and Cr concentrations (both P ≤ 0.05) across time. At baseline or during the 6-month feeding trial, 18 dogs (8.6%) had increased serum SDMA, but normal serum Cr, consistent with IRIS Stage 1 chronic kidney disease. This included 9 dogs fed test food and 9 dogs fed owner’s-choice foods. Compared with baseline, after feeding 9 dogs test food for 6 months, serum SDMA decreased in 8 dogs and increased in 1 dog. After feeding 9 dogs owner’s-choice foods for 6 months, serum SDMA decreased in 4 dogs and increased in 4 dogs (remained stable in 1 dog). The decreases in serum SDMA and Cr concentrations were significant (both P = 0.03) only for dogs fed test food. These results suggest that nonazotemic dogs with elevated serum SDMA (early renal insufficiency) when fed a test food designed to promote healthy aging are more likely to demonstrate improved renal function compared with dogs fed owner’s-choice foods.     

Geometric design of crab-like climbing and walking robots

1 Introduction Many CLAWAR (CLimbing And WAlking Robots)researchers have concentrated on navigation, gait gen-eration and control, rather than mechanical design. Whenprototypes have been developed, it has often been as-sumed that the mechanical design principles are knownand the problem is one of applying them. In practise, thisis far from the truth, as the performance of existing pro-totypes testifies. The most common design approach is tocopy the geometry of insects and mammals wit…     

Geometric and many-particle aspects of transmitter binding.

We investigate the various reactivity patterns possible when several transmitter molecules, released at one side of a synaptic gap, diffuse and bind reversibly to a single receptor at the other end. In the framework of a one-dimensional approximation, the complete time, reactivity, concentration and gap-width dependence are determined, using a rigorous theoretical and computational approach to the many-body aspects of this problem. The time dependence of the survival probability is found to consist of up to four phases. These include a short delay followed by gaussian, power-law, and exponential decay phases. A rigorous expression is derived for the long-time exponent and approximate expressions are obtained for describing the short-time gaussian phase.     

The Implementation of the Iterative Diagonalization Scheme and ab initio Molecular Dynamics Simulation with the LAPW Method

Abstract

A new ab initio molecular dynamics method based on the full-potential linearized-augmented-plane-wave (LAPW) basis set has been implemented. The LAPW basis set has been successfully employed for systems containing localized electrons such as first row atoms and transition metals. In our implementation of the LAPW-MD scheme, iterative residual minimization algorithm is used to solve the electronic states problem. The atoms are moved according to forces derived from the Hellman–Feynman theorem and incomplete basis set correction terms. The performance of the program is further enhanced by parallelization. We will discuss technical details of the program implementation and present results obtained from this code to the equilibrium structures and vibrational properties of simple diatomic molecules.     

Geometric and mechanical properties of human cervical spine ligaments

This study characterized the geometry and mechanical properties of the cervical ligaments from C2-T1 levels. The lengths and cross-sectional areas of the anterior longitudinal ligament, posterior longitudinal ligament, joint capsules, ligamentum flavum, and interspinous ligament were determined from eight human cadavers using cryomicrotomy images. The geometry was defined based on spinal anatomy and its potential use in complex mathematical models. The biomechanical force-deflection, stiffness, energy, stress, and strain data were obtained from 25 cadavers using in situ axial tensile tests. Data were grouped into middle (C2-C5) and lower (C5-T1) cervical levels. Both the geometric length and area of cross section, and the biomechanical properties including the stiffness, stress, strain, energy, and Young's modulus, were presented for each of the five ligaments. In both groups, joint capsules and ligamentum flavum exhibited the highest cross-sectional area (p < 0.005), while the longitudinal ligaments had the highest length measurements. Although not reaching statistical significance, for all ligaments, cross-sectional areas were higher in the C5-T1 than in the C2-C5 group; and lengths were higher in the C2-C5 than in the C5-T1 group with the exception of the flavum (Table 1 in the main text). Force-deflection characteristics (plots) are provided for all ligaments in both groups. Failure strains were higher for the ligaments of the posterior (interspinous ligament, joint capsules, and ligamentum flavum) than the anterior complex (anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments) in both groups. In contrast, the failure stress and Young's modulus were higher for the anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments compared to the ligaments of the posterior complex in the two groups. However, similar tendencies in the structural responses (stiffness, energy) were not found in both groups. Researchers attempting to incorporate these data into stress-analysis models can choose the specific parameter(s) based on the complexity of the model used to study the biomechanical behavior of the human cervical spine.     

Geometric and material determinants of patterning efficiency by dielectrophoresis

Dielectrophoretic (DEP) forces have been used extensively to manipulate, separate, and localize biological cells and bioparticles via high-gradient electric fields. However, minimization of DEP exposure time is desirable, because of possible untoward effects on cell behavior. Toward this goal, this article investigates the geometric and material determinants of particle patterning kinetics and efficiency. In particular, the time required to achieve a steady-state pattern is theoretically modeled and experimentally validated for a planar, interdigitated bar electrode array energized in a standing-wave configuration. This measure of patterning efficiency is calculated from an improved Fourier series solution of DEP force, in which realistic boundary conditions and a finite chamber height are imposed to reflect typical microfluidic applications. The chamber height, electrode spacing, and fluid viscosity and conductivity are parameters that profoundly affect patterning efficiency, and optimization can reduce electric field exposure by orders of magnitude. Modeling strategies are generalizable to arbitrary electrode design as well as to conditions where DEP force may not act alone to cause particle motion. This improved understanding of DEP patterning kinetics provides a framework for new advances in the development of DEP-based biological devices and assays with minimal perturbation of cell behavior.     

Geometric and potential driving formation and evolution of biomolecular surfaces

This paper presents new geometrical flow equations for the theoretical modeling of biomolecular surfaces in the context of multiscale implicit solvent models. To account for the local variations near the biomolecular surfaces due to interactions between solvent molecules, and between solvent and solute molecules, we propose potential driven geometric flows, which balance the intrinsic geometric forces that would occur for a surface separating two homogeneous materials with the potential forces induced by the atomic interactions. Stochastic geometric flows are introduced to account for the random fluctuation and dissipation in density and pressure near the solvent–solute interface. Physical properties, such as free energy minimization (area decreasing) and incompressibility (volume preserving), are realized by some of our geometric flow equations. The proposed approach for geometric and potential forces driving the formation and evolution of biological surfaces is illustrated by extensive numerical experiments and compared with established minimal molecular surfaces and molecular surfaces. Local modification of biomolecular surfaces is demonstrated with potential driven geometric flows. High order geometric flows are also considered and tested in the present work for surface generation. Biomolecular surfaces generated by these approaches are typically free of geometric singularities. As the speed of surface generation is crucial to implicit solvent model based molecular dynamics, four numerical algorithms, a semi-implicit scheme, a Crank–Nicolson scheme, and two alternating direction implicit (ADI) schemes, are constructed and tested. Being either stable or conditionally stable but admitting a large critical time step size, these schemes overcome the stability constraint of the earlier forward Euler scheme. Aided with the Thomas algorithm, one of the ADI schemes is found to be very efficient as it balances the speed and accuracy.      

Recovery and Enumeration of Cryptosporidium parvum from Animal Fecal Matrices

Accurate quantification of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts in animal fecal deposits on land is an essential starting point for estimating watershed C. parvum loads. Due to the general poor performance and variable recovery efficiency of existing enumeration methods, protocols were devised based on initial dispersion of oocysts from feces by vortexing in 2 mM tetrasodium pyrophosphate, followed by immunomagnetic separation. The protocols were validated by using an internal control seed preparation to determine the levels of oocyst recovery for a range of fecal types. The levels of recovery of 10² oocysts from cattle feces (0.5 g of processed feces) ranged from 31 to 46%, and the levels of recovery from sheep feces (0.25 g of processed feces) ranged from 21% to 35%. The within-sample coefficients of variation for the percentages of recovery from five replicates ranged from 10 to 50%. The ranges for levels of recovery of oocysts from cattle, kangaroo, pig, and sheep feces (juveniles and adults) collected in a subsequent watershed animal fecal survey were far wider than the ranges predicted by the validation data. Based on the use of an internal control added to each fecal sample, the levels of recovery ranged from 0 to 83% for cattle, from 4 to 62% for sheep, from 1 to 42% for pigs, and from 40 to 73% for kangaroos. Given the variation in the levels of recovery of oocysts from different fecal matrices, it is recommended that an internal control be added to at least one replicate of every fecal sample analyzed to determine the percentage of recovery. Depending on the animal type and based on the lowest approximate percentages of recovery, between 10 and 100 oocysts g of feces⁻¹ must be present to be detected.     

蜣螂后胸叉骨的几何形态学分析及其适应进化研究

【目的】甲虫的后胸叉骨是基部位于后足基节关节处,端部游离在胸腔内的几丁质构成的内骨骼。后胸叉骨作为胸腹部运动肌肉的联结点,在甲虫运动过程中扮演了重要角色,同时也承载了分类和系统发育信息。蜣螂根据其习性可分为滚粪球和直接掘洞两类行为类型。通过传统的比较形态学方法,我们无法得知滚粪球或直接掘洞的行为对后胸叉骨形态的影响。本研究旨在利用定量的几何形态学方法探究蜣螂后胸叉骨形态对不同行为选择压力的响应关系。【方法】对76种蜣螂后胸叉骨的形态多样性进行二维几何形态学定量评估;利用显微CT和计算机三维重建方法,对直接掘洞类蜣螂和滚粪球类蜣螂的代表种西班牙粪蜣螂Copris hispanus和忠诚泽蜣螂Kheper devotus的后胸叉骨进行三维重建,用于比较两者的三维形态差异。【结果】经过几何形态学分析可知,两类蜣螂后胸叉骨背面观和侧面观的马氏距离和普氏距离的p值均低于0.0001,表明两类蜣螂的后胸叉骨的形态存在显著性差异;通过对C.hispanus和K.devotus后胸叉骨3D模型的比较发现,两类蜣螂后胸叉骨的最大区别在于后胸叉骨的端半部(叉臂和中突)。前者的叉臂细长,中突面积大,背立脊呈窄条状且不发达;后者的叉臂宽扁,叉臂基半部十分宽大,中突面积小,背立脊呈鳍状且十分发达。【结论】滚粪球或直接掘洞的行为会对蜣螂后胸叉骨的形态有显著性影响,蜣螂后胸叉骨形态与滚粪球和直接掘洞两种行为的选择压力显著相关,这与后胸叉骨所附着的胸部肌肉参与相关运动关系密切。本研究为探索昆虫形态与功能关系提供了一个有益范例。     

Geometric Analysis of Ecological Models with Slow and Fast Processes

The interaction of fast and slow processes is an integral part of the sudden large shifts that sometimes occur in ecosystems. To study the effects of slow/fast variables on ecosystems, we used a range of examples from natural and exploited aquatic and terrestrial systems. So-called catastrophic bifurcations in the dynamics of the fast components are at the heart of such dramatic shifts. We discuss some of the most important bifurcations and show how they can be analyzed. Subsequently, we show how the interaction with slowly changing variables can be understood from graphs constructed in a simple way using the singular perturbation approach. Received 30 November 1999; accepted 30 May 2000.     

Geometric and thermodynamic restrictions for the self-assembly of glycosphingolipid-phospholipid systems

The thermodynamic and geometrical features of possible self-assembled structures of a series of chemically related glycosphingolipids differing in the complexity of their polar headgroup, and of their mixture with phospholipids, have been predicted according to the theory of self-assembly of hydrocarbon amphiphiles of Israelachvili et al. ((1980) Q. Rev. Biophys. 13, 340-357). The type and number of carbohydrate residues in the oligosaccharide chain of the polar headgroup are of paramount importance to determine the characteristics and thermodynamic stability of the possible self-assembled structure. In single component systems, the general prediction of the theory is that smaller aggregates may form as the polar headgroup of the glycosphingolipid is more complex and as the lateral surface pressure is smaller. In noninteracting two-component glycosphingolipid-phospholipid systems, the thermodynamic stability and the overall geometry of the possible aggregate appear to be determined by the proportion and type of glycosphingolipid present. Large and abrupt changes of the possible free energy per molecule, radius of curvature, and predicted asymmetry ratio for a particular glycosphingolipid may be triggered by relatively small changes of the molecular parameters, lipid composition, lateral surface pressure or vice-versa. If intermolecular interactions are taken into account with respect to the predictions for an ideal, noninteracting system, the theory indicates that two-component bilayer vesicles of polysialoganglioside-phosphatidylcholine may be thermodynamically and geometrically more stable. On the other hand, for systems constituted by phosphatidylcholine and neutral glycosphingolipids or monosialogangliosides, the possible bilayer vesicle is predicted to be less stable than in the ideal, noninteracting case. The results emphasize the general validity of the theory as applied to glycosphingolipid-containing systems.     

Quantification and Stability of Human Adenoviruses and Polyomavirus JCPyV in Wastewater Matrices

Human adenoviruses (HAdV) and human polyomavirus JCPyV have been previously proposed as indicators of fecal viral contamination in the environment. Different wastewater matrices have been analyzed by applying real-time quantitative PCR procedures for the presence, quantity, and stability of a wide diversity of excreted HAdV and JCPyV. High quantities of HAdV and JCPyV were detected in sewage, effluent wastewater, sludge, and biosolid samples. Both viruses showed high stability in urban sewage. These results confirm the suitability of both viruses as indicators of human fecal viral pollution.