Micropropagation of Tectona grandis: Assessment of Genetic Fidelity

Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to analyze genetic fidelity of micropropagated teak (Tectona grandis L.) clones with respect to subcultural passage. Of the twenty primers screened, no variation in RAPD profiles was noticed in the in vitro clones of fifth, tenth, fifteenth and twentieth passage in comparison to the in vivo mother plants. Only one micropropagated plant of twenty-fifth subcultural passage, however, differed from the in vivo ones. It revealed the appearance of a new polymorphic DNA fragment (molecular mass 379 kb) in case of primer OPB-08. This primer, manifesting detectable variation, may be utilized as a diagnostic marker for assessing genetic fidelity of micropropagted teak plants. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Tool use by captive pigtailed macaques

A group of pigtailed macaques was given the opportunity to use a rod to reach otherwise unavailable food. Initial solution by one group member resulted from trial and error but subsequent solutions by others were accelerated by three types of observation learning: social facilitation, stimulus enhancement, and imitative copying. The greater capacity of macaques for observation learning may explain the greater incidence of tool behavior and subcultural phenomena among macaques than among other cercopithecines.     

两栖类皮肤石蜡切片样本量探讨——以峨眉髭蟾毛细血管丰富度为例

石蜡切片是量化两栖动物各种皮肤特征的常用技术,但在两栖动物中缺乏取样标准。血管密度等无法直接度量的特性可能需要较大的样本量,探讨这类特征的取样标准有利于实践工作。本研究对雄性峨眉髭蟾Leptobrachium boringii表皮下毛细血管丰富度进行量化,并通过重抽样分析该特征所需样本量。实验获得2只个体10个部位数据,每个部位模拟29种抽样。结果显示,体型较小个体多数部位需接近20条组织或更高的样本量,体型较大个体多数部位所需样本量接近15条或更高。建议在两栖类皮肤石蜡切片工作中对全部有效切片进行制片,以满足不同特征对样本量的要求。表皮下毛细血管丰富度与所需样本量呈负相关关系,可能缘于高密度部位的血管分布更均匀。如在其他两栖动物类群中亦观察到该相关性,则有助于在量化该特征时合理选取样本量。     

Cost-efficient study designs for binary response data with Gaussian covariate measurement error.

When mismeasurement of the exposure variable is anticipated, epidemiologic cohort studies may be augmented to include a validation study, where a small sample of data relating the imperfect exposure measurement method to the better method is collected. Optimal study designs (i.e., least expensive subject to specified power constraints) are developed that give the overall sample size and proportion of the overall sample size allocated to the validation study. If better exposure measurements can be collected on a sample of subjects, an optimal design can be suggested that conforms to realistic budgetary constraints. The properties of three designs--those that include an internal validation study, those where the validated subsample is derived from subjects external to the primary investigation, and those that use the better method of exposure assessment on all subjects--are compared. The proportion of overall study resources allocated to the validation substudy increases with increasing sample disease frequency, decreasing unit cost of the superior exposure measurement relative to the imperfect one, increasing unit cost of outcome ascertainment, increasing distance between two alternative values of the relative risk between which the study is designed to discriminate, and increasing magnitude of hypothesized values. This proportion also depends in a nonlinear fashion on the severity of measurement error, and when the validation study is internal, measurement error reaches a point after which the optimal design is the smaller, fully validated one.     

Aboriginal youth,hip hop and the politics of identification

This paper explores the identity work taking place around contemporary subcultural hip hop amongst Australian indigenous youth in two disadvantaged urban locations. Previous work on Aboriginal hip hop has been attentive to the interface between tradition and modernity. However, existing scholarship has lacked a deeper ethnographic understanding of the dynamics between youth and parent cultures, and the tensions between the two generations. This article is based on research with young hip hop enthusiasts, community activists and educators. It deals with the cultural politics of identification and sees hip hop practice as associated with a process in which Aboriginality is crystallized as a principal affiliation and as offering an account for experiences of social marginalization. Far from being an outlet for expressing a prior or essential Aboriginality, hip hop as cultural practice is associated with the production of particular identifications.     

Blinded versus unblinded estimation of a correlation coefficient to inform interim design adaptations

Regulatory authorities require that the sample size of a confirmatory trial is calculated prior to the start of the trial. However, the sample size quite often depends on parameters that might not be known in advance of the study. Misspecification of these parameters can lead to under‐ or overestimation of the sample size. Both situations are unfavourable as the first one decreases the power and the latter one leads to a waste of resources. Hence, designs have been suggested that allow a re‐assessment of the sample size in an ongoing trial. These methods usually focus on estimating the variance. However, for some methods the performance depends not only on the variance but also on the correlation between measurements. We develop and compare different methods for blinded estimation of the correlation coefficient that are less likely to introduce operational bias when the blinding is maintained. Their performance with respect to bias and standard error is compared to the unblinded estimator. We simulated two different settings: one assuming that all group means are the same and one assuming that different groups have different means. Simulation results show that the naïve (one‐sample) estimator is only slightly biased and has a standard error comparable to that of the unblinded estimator. However, if the group means differ, other estimators have better performance depending on the sample size per group and the number of groups.     

红树林样品不经分离的微生物群体培养物生物活性研究

从海南、广西与广东三省的红树林区采集了181个样品,不进行微生物分离而直接作发酵剂接种到发酵培养基进行发酵,取发酵上清液进行抗细菌、抗真菌与肿瘤细胞毒活性的测定。同时对样品进行可培养微生物的分离与生物活性测定。结果显示:不同样品类型的生物活性差异较大。在15个具有强抗活性的样品中,有5个样品分离到的单株菌均无任何生物活性,说明这5个样品的生物活性可能是由微生物的群体作用产生的,也可能是某种没有培养出的微生物产生的。初步表明了探索微生物混合培养获得生物活性代谢产物的可能性。     

The hypothenar radial arch,a genetically determined epidermal ridge configuration

A radial arch in the hypothenar area of the human palm is an uncommon ridge arrangement. It is associated with an ulnar triradius and no axial triradius is present. The configuration generally occurs on right hands but is sometimes found on both hands. The frequency in the few European populations studied and in one Canadian sample varies from 0.2% to over 2% of persons. Hypothenar radial arches have also been reported in patients with abnormal sex chromosomes but are not specific to any karyotype. Two families are described in which nearly related persons have hypothenar radial arches. They provide the first evidence that the pattern is inherited. In one family three out of six sibs have radial arches in the hypothenar area and so have two out of three children of one of them. In the other family a pair of identical twins and their mother have hypothenar radial arches. It is suggested that, from the information available, inheritance is probably due to a recessive gene.     

Berkson's paradox and weighted distributions: An application to Alzheimer's disease

One reason for observing in practice a false positive or negative correlation between two random variables, which are either not correlated or correlated with a different direction, is the overrepresentation in the sample of individuals satisfying specific properties. In 1946, Berkson first illustrated the presence of a false correlation due to this last reason, which is known as Berkson's paradox and is one of the most famous paradox in probability and statistics. In this paper, the concept of weighted distributions is utilized to describe Berskon's paradox. Moreover, a proper procedure is suggested to make inference for the population given a biased sample which possesses all the characteristics of Berkson's paradox. A real data application for patients with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease demonstrates that the proposed method reveals characteristics of the population that are masked by the sampling procedure.     

Esterase as a Marker to Study the Genetic Fidelity of Micropropagated Banana

Isozymic profiles of different micropropagated banana (Musa spp.) cultivars (Giant Governor, Dwarf Cavendish, Robusta, Champa, Kachakel and Chatim) of West Bengal, India were assessed at different subcultural passages. Variation with respect to the banding pattern was noticed only in esterase but not in peroxidase and acid phosphatase. Of the six cultivars, four showed variation both at isozymic and yield level. Two cultivars (Kachakel and Chatim) maintained their esterase profile and genetic stability even after twenty subcultural passages. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Age specific cell sorting within aggregates of chick neural retina cells

Summary Chick retinal cells of different stages of development, and of different areas of the retina, were stained with two vital fluorescent stains, reaggregated, and analysed for sorting-out. Sorting-out of cells within aggregates occurred if one cell sample was derived from the retinae before and the other after day 7 of incubation. No such cell-sorting effects were found in experiments performed on cells of different areas at the same stage. It is suggested that the sorting-out reflects either a change in cell population around day 7 (such as an increase in postmitotic neuronal cells), or the effect of a stage specific signal which changes the surface properties of a substantial part of most or all cell types.     

Organ temperature measurement in a microwave oven by resonance frequency shift

An experimental system has been developed that can indirectly measure temperature in a high-intensity microwave field over a broad range of conditions. A RF amplifier connected closed-loop around a high Q cavity oscillates at one of the natural modes of the oven. A bandpass filter selects the mode of interest. As the frozen sample is thawed, an increase in dielectric constant occurs, decreasing the resonance frequency of the cavity. Calibration of the system is performed by measuring the frequency shift for samples whose temperatures are known, Rotation of samples during thawing often causes oscillations of the resonance frequency. These oscillations are generated by asymmetric sample properties and geometry, and hot spots developed during the thaw. Development of a method that would predict hot spot location from these resonance frequency oscillations and permit modulation of the magnetron or sample rotation to minimize thermal runaway is suggested.     

Morphological analysis and age in the permanent dentitions of young American Indians

Approximately two hundred permanent dentitions of young American Indians are inspected in an attempt to assess the effect of proband age on the relative usefulness of the dentition for morphological analysis. The technique used is to compare the number of observations that cannot be made on a dentition of a certain age with the number that could be made on a dentition in perfect condition. This is done for one-year age groups, 13 through 21 years, represented in the sample. The data do not support the idea that morphological loss is as strongly dependent upon age as one might expect. It is suggested that function may be more important than age in obliterating the finer dental morphology.     

The health seeking process: An approach to the natural history of illness

Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry - Anthropological research on health-related behaviors in the United States has tended to emphasize folk illnesses among particular subcultural groups, obscuring...     

Design of validation studies for estimating the odds ratio of exposure-disease relationships when exposure is misclassified

We compared several validation study designs for estimating the odds ratio of disease with misclassified exposure. We assumed that the outcome and misclassified binary covariate are available and that the error-free binary covariate is measured in a subsample, the validation sample. We considered designs in which the total size of the validation sample is fixed and the probability of selection into the validation sample may depend on outcome and misclassified covariate values. Design comparisons were conducted for rare and common disease scenarios, where the optimal design is the one that minimizes the variance of the maximum likelihood estimator of the true log odds ratio relating the outcome to the exposure of interest. Misclassification rates were assumed to be independent of the outcome. We used a sensitivity analysis to assess the effect of misspecifying the misclassification rates. Under the scenarios considered, our results suggested that a balanced design, which allocates equal numbers of validation subjects into each of the four outcome/mismeasured covariate categories, is preferable for its simplicity and good performance. A user-friendly Fortran program is available from the second author, which calculates the optimal sampling fractions for all designs considered and the efficiencies of these designs relative to the optimal hybrid design for any scenario of interest.     

Empirical choice of sampling procedures for optimal research design in the longitudinal study of primate behavior

A method is suggested to evaluate on an empirical basis sampling plans for the longitudinal study of primate behavior in those very common situations in which the mathematical structure of behavior is unknown. The method is based on a randomization procedure applied to a pilot sample of the behavior organized so that cost of implementation of a sampling plan can be evaluated vis á vis the sampling error intrinsic to the plan.     

RELN基因启动子区SNP位点与精神分裂症的相关性分析

目前有很多证据证明RELN基因在世界人群中是一个精神分裂症的致病基因.基于之前报道过的RELN基因在精神分裂症患者中表达下降的事实,可以推测在RELN基因启动子区可能包含影响精神分裂症发生的多态位点.该研究分析了中国西南地区病例——对照人群中(940位患者和1369位正常人)RELN基因启动子区的3个单核苷酸多态性位点与精神分裂症的相关性.研究结果显示,这些多态位点都不与精神分裂症相关,表明RELN基因的致病位点并不在其启动子区.将前人研究结果与该研究结果进行综合分析(共2843个样本),结果仍不显著.因此,该研究表明,RELN基因启动子区的单核苷酸多态性位点在中国人群中并不与精神分裂症相关.     

Metric variation and species recognition in the fossil record

One of the first and most important tasks of the paleontologist is classifying specimens into species. Species recognition commonly involves sorting specimens on the basis of qualitative and quantitative similarities and differences. Often, however, variation in simple metric characters like tooth size or jaw length plays an important role in debates about whether a sample comprises a single species or more than one morphologically similar species. For example, Simpson, Roe, and Lewontin 1 suggested that a fossil sample showing a coefficient of variation greater than 10.0 was likely to comprise more than one species. Well‐known controversies over species recognition in which metric sample variation has been important have simmered for years, focusing on hominids, hominoids, and other extinct primates. Some of these have been resolved; others have not. For example, Pilbeam and Zwell 2 convincingly demonstrated multiple species among South African hominids by showing that metric tooth size variation was too great to be reasonably interpreted as sexual dimorphism. But metric variation continues to play a role in debates about whether Australopithecus afarensis 3 , 4 and Homo habilis 5 - 9 each comprise a single species or two or more separate species. Similarly, there has been steady debate about the number of species present in African Proconsul. Some favor an interpretation of a single extremely dimorphic species, 10 - 12 while others favor an interpretation of two or more species. 13