Mutation rate and pattern of microsatellites in common carp (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cyprinus carpio</Emphasis> L.)

Microsatellites are popular molecular markers in genetic and evolutionary studies. Their mutational dynamics have been extensively studied in humans and fruit flies, but few data were available in fish. By genotyping 55 individuals of a F1 pedigree, we investigated the mutation rates and patterns of 49 microsatellites in one of the most important fresh water fish species, the common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.). The overall mutation rate of the 49 loci was 5.56×10⁻⁴/locus/generation (95% confidence interval 1.52×10⁻⁴ and 1.63×10⁻³). The change of allele size was between +2 to −5 repeat units, assuming that the mutation allele arose from the parental allele most similar in size to the mutant.     

Stepwise Procedures under Unknown Variances for Toxicological Evaluation

Toxicological study is of practical importance in modern drug development. Proper statistical methodologies for toxicological evaluation of new developed drugs are undoubtedly necessary. In toxicological studies, it is practically desirable for a method to not declare the safety of a developed drug at a higher dosage prior to the declaration of the safety at lower dosages. Hsu and Berger 's stepwise confidence interval method was recently proposed for this purpose. Unfortunately, their procedure necessitates the homogeneity of variances among dosages, which is seldom satisfied in practice. In this article, via the application of the Stein 's two‐stage sampling method, we propose a stepwise confidence interval procedure for the same task without the homoscedasticity restriction. In addition, our procedure is shown to control its family‐wise type I error rate at the pre‐chosen nominal level. A simulation study will be conducted to compare our method, Hsu and Berger 's stepwise confidence interval method, and a single stage stepwise testing procedure based on Welch 's approximation. Our procedure is empirically shown to outperform Hsu and Berger 's procedure under heteroscedasticity and perform similarly with Welch 's procedure. An example will be used to illustrate our method.     

河南董寨国家级自然保护区发冠卷尾的巢址选择

2004年6~9月于河南董寨国家级自然保护区对发冠卷尾(Dicrurus hottentottus)的巢址选择进行了研究。野外调查中共发现发冠卷尾的巢47个,分布于针叶林、阔叶林和针阔混交林等3种植被类型中。我们在巢址样方(n=47)和对照样方(n=47)中对地形、距离与植被等因素(共15个变量)进行了调查,最终通过逐步判别分析表明,距山脊距离、距水源距离、乔木均高和灌木密度是影响其巢址选择的主要因子。     

逐步聚类法及其应用

本文介绍了一种非等级分类方法——逐步聚类法,并将其应用于翅果油树灌丛的数量分类研究,结果表明：逐步聚类法实现最优分类的目标过程,是依样方组内具有最小的离差平方和。样方组间具有最大的离差平方和为标准,使样方组内具有最大的同质性,样方组间具有最大的异质性,其分类结果与实际情况吻合度较高;其次,逐步聚类法只需计算每个样方到该样方形心的距离,可缩短计算时间和节省计算机内存单元,提高工作效率。 与模糊c—均值聚类和TWINSPAN结果相比,逐步聚类的结果类似于模糊c—均值聚类,即样方组内具有较高的同质性;在不要求分类结果具有明显上下级关系的前提下,逐步聚类结果要优于TWINSPAN。     

Analytical grade C-phycocyanin obtained by a single-step purification process

C-phycocyanin (C-PC) is a phycobiliprotein that can be used as a natural blue dye in the food and cosmetic industries, as a biomarker or as an agent in medical treatments, depending on its purity grade. Here we described for the first time a single-step purification process of C-PC extracted from the wet biomass of Spirulina (Arthrospira) platensis LEB-52 using ion exchange chromatography with pH gradient elution. Different conditions varying the elution buffers and volumes, the loading pH and the addition of salt in the elution buffer were studied. The chromatographic condition that resulted in high recovery and purity consisted in equilibration and washing with 0.025 mol/L Tris-HCl buffer pH 6.5 and elution combining a step with 0.08 mol/L NaCl in 0.025 mol/L Tris-HCl buffer pH 6.5 and a pH gradient elution with 0.05 mol/L citrate buffer pH 6.2–3.0. This process resulted in C-PC with purities of 4.2 and 3.5 with recoveries of 32.6 and 49.5 %, respectively, in one purification step.     

Effects of variable hydroperiods and water level fluctuations on denitrification capacity, nitrate removal, and benthic-microbial community structure in constructed wetlands

The hydrologic character of wetlands is one of the attributes by which they are defined. There are, however, conflicting reports about the detrimental versus beneficial responses of wetland systems to water level fluctuations and variable hydroperiods. We conducted water level and hydroperiod fluctuation studies in full-scale experimental wetlands in order to determine the effects of hydraulic operation on wetland performance (in terms of nutrient removal), and benthic-bacterial community function (in terms of denitrification potential, DNP) and structure (via terminal restriction fragment length polymorphisms, T-RFLP). In our comparison, detention time was the controlling factor for nitrate removal at the system level. However, widely fluctuating water levels and variable hydroperiods did not diminish either the nitrate removal capacity of the experimental wetlands, or the size or composition of benthic-bacterial communities relative to the more stable water level systems. Rather, significant differences in denitrification potential rates, bacterial cell densities, and benthic community structure were a function of sampling location within the experimental wetlands regardless of hydraulic operation. The results of this study support the need for reconsidering the hydraulic criteria for wetland delineation.     

Stepwise gatekeeping procedures in clinical trial applications

This paper discusses multiple testing problems in which families of null hypotheses are tested in a sequential manner and each family serves as a gatekeeper for the subsequent families. Gatekeeping testing strategies of this type arise frequently in clinical trials with multiple objectives, e.g., multiple endpoints and/or multiple dose-control comparisons. It is demonstrated in this paper that the parallel gatekeeping procedure of Dmitrienko, Offen and Westfall (2003) admits a simple stepwise representation (n null hypotheses can be tested in n steps rather than 2n steps required in the closed procedure). The stepwise representation considerably simplifies the implementation of gatekeeping procedures in practice and provides an important insight into the nature of gatekeeping inferences. The derived stepwise gatekeeping procedure is illustrated using clinical trial examples.     

心电图诊断右心室肥大的新指标-QRS波群及倒置T波面积

目的：研究利用心电图诊断右心室肥大的临床指标,探讨提高其临床诊断率的方法。方法：筛选出右室肥大患者心电图记录75例,正常对照组30例;分别采集传统诊断方法和改进方法所需各项指标,并分别加以判断。结果：传统组合诊断指标的灵敏度为85.3％,特异度为93％;改进的组合诊断指标灵敏度为96％,特异度为100％。结论：由QRS波群面积、倒置T波面积、心电轴右偏度数组成的改进指标是心电图诊断右室肥大最重要的指标。     

A two-stage stepwise estimation procedure

Summary .   This article proposes a two-stage simultaneous confidence procedure for the comparisons of k pairs of population means, without using multiplicity adjustment of more than two populations. The proposed procedure can be broadly applied to parametric or nonparametric models. It is robust and versatile because its derivation only utilizes a partitioning approach in conjunction with a bivariate adjustment, without any assumption on the underlying distribution. To elucidate the application, the proposed procedure is intertwined with the estimation of the therapeutic window of a drug. It provides confidence limits for the efficacy and the toxicity of the effective doses, highest ineffective dose, safe doses, and lowest unsafe dose, simultaneously. Such estimation information facilitates follow-up studies in clinical trials. As an illustrative example, the new procedure is applied to analyze a data set on molecular cancer therapeutics regarding the apoptotic killing effects of different chemical compounds on two leukemia cell lines.