Anthocyanins of the Sterculiaceae: Flavonoid scores and Hennigian phylogenetic systematics

Published results of the distribution of anthocyanins in the Sterculiaceae have been re-interpreted on the basis of the phylogenetic status of the compounds present. A flavonoid score system was less useful than a cladistic interpretation based on Hennigian arguments.     

The taxonomy of neolithic man and its phylogenetic relationship to later paleolithic man and modern man in China

In approaching the taxonomy of Neolithic Man and its phylogenetic relationship to Later Paleolithic Man and Modern Man in China, the statistical methods used here are Penrose's shape distance and PCA (Principal Component Analysis). The scattergram based on principal component scores, combines the dendrogram based on Penrose's shape distance, and takes the male taxonomy into main consideration, but takes the female taxonomy — as a reference only because the differentiations in physical characteristics among male populations generally are rather larger than those among the female populations. Thus according to this scattergram, Neolithic Man in China can be divided into two large groups: the Northern China group, and the Southern China group. The theory is that in Hengzhen there exist some blood mixtures between the Southern China Group and the Northern China Group (especially the third subgroup) of Neolithic Man. Later Paleolithic Man of China — Liujiang and Upper-Cave Man — can also clearly distinguished from the rest of Neolithic Man in China in the scattergram, and can be considered as two different local types of Later Paleolithic Man. So-called “Negro-Australoid” racial traits can themselves be doubtlessly traced back to Later Paleolithic Man of China — Liujiang and Upper-cave Man. These traits are the intrinsic characteristics of Neolithic Man in China and only then is there slight difference in the extent of the manifestation of these traits in the population.     

Some environmental factors affecting the reproduction of Aphanius dispar (Rüppell, 1828)

In order to determine the suitability of thecyprinodont fish Aphanius dispar as a biologicalcontrol agent for mosquito larvae, the effects oftemperature, salinity, feeding rate and photoperiod onits reproductive condition were studied. The factorsexamined were the gonado-somatic index (GSI) and fourdistinct stages of cell maturation in the ovaries(oogonia, primary oocytes, secondary oocytes andmature ova). The fish were found to be tolerant to awide range of the examined factors. GSI's were notaffected by ambient temperatures over the range of18 °C to 37 °C. However, oocyte maturationstages increased as temperatures rose from 18 °Cto 27 °C, with mature ova first being found at thelatter temperature. No significant differences amongmaturation stages were found between27 °C–37 °C. At salinities ranging from of0 ppt to 56 ppt, no significant differences were found betweenmean GSI's, except for the two extremes of the testrange. The ovaries of fish kept in distilled watercontained primordial germ cells only. In feedingexperiments, significant differences were found onlybetween the ovaries (GSI's and oocyte maturationstages) of fish deprived of food and those fed at1% body weight per day. Regarding photoperiod,a decrease in day length from 14L:10D (the longest dayof the year) to 10L:14D (the shortest) caused adecrease in oocyte maturation stages. Fish at theintermediate level (12L:12D) still had ovariessuitable for spawning, whereas those at 10L:14D didnot. The results of this study show that limitinglevels for adequate reproductive condition were foundfor some of the factors investigated, however, rangesof the factors above these levels were relativelylarge. That Aphanius dispar's reproductivecondition may be controlled in an artificialenvironment is essential for it to be mass produced,and a prerequisite for its use in the biologicalcontrol of mosquito larvae.     

Taxonomic variation in total leaf protein amino acid compositions of grasses

Leaves of greenhouse grown grasses had free protein amino acid contents of generally less than 5 % total amino acids, while field collected grasses averaged 14.7 % free protein amino acid contents. Taxonomic patterns are detectable in the total leaf amino acid profiles of grasses from both sources, those of pooids being distinguishable from those of chloridoids and panicoids, and those of danthonioids showing an intermediate pattern. Leaf profiles of Oryza, Stipeae, and Ehrharteae resemble one another, and are more like those of pooids than those of panicoids. Variations in Thr and Leu are apparently associated with differences in photosynthetic pathway. Grass leaves are generally low in total amino acid contents (2.2 ? 1.0 g % fr. wt), with Ile, Val and Met + Cys identified as the limiting essential amino acids. However, the nutritional ‘chemical scores’ of grass leaf proteins are high (75 %, based on the WHO scoring pattern).     

Genomic architecture of autism from comprehensive whole-genome sequence annotation

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Could the intrinsic rate of increase represent the fitness in terrestrial ectotherms?

The intrinsic rate of increase (r_m) has been considered as an important indicator of fitness in terrestrial ectotherms since long. It is actually an equivalent to the instantaneous growth rate of the exponential equation for describing the density-independent population growth. In terrestrial ectotherms, r_m has been demonstrated to be temperature-dependent. The temperature at which r_m was maximal, was considered to be the “optimal” temperature for fitness in Amarasekare and Savage (2012), but this definition needs further analysis. Only r_m cannot provide thorough representation of fitness. Because body size can affect the competitive abilities in many terrestrial ectotherms, both population size and body size should be considered in measuring the fitness of ectotherms. The rule of “bigger is better” requires relatively low temperature to increase in body size, whereas relatively high temperature is required for a rapid increase in population size. Thus, there is presumably a trade-off in temperature for adjusting individual body size and population size to achieve maximum fitness. We hypothesized that this temperature could be reflected by the intrinsic optimum temperature for developmental rate in the Sharpe–Schoolfield–Ikemoto model, and it led to a temperature estimate around 20 °C. However, the traditional viewpoint based on the temperature corresponding to the maximal intrinsic rate of increase provides a temperature estimate around 30 °C. This study suggests that a low temperature around 20 °C might authentically represent the optimal ambient temperature for fitness in terrestrial ectotherms. It implies that thermal biologists who are interested in the effect of temperature on the fitness in terrestrial ectotherms should pay more attention to their performance at low temperature rather than high temperature.     

Predicting reliable regions in protein alignments from sequence profiles

For applications such as comparative modelling one major issue is the reliability of sequence alignments. Reliable regions in alignments can be predicted using sub-optimal alignments of the same pair of sequences. Here we show that reliable regions in alignments can also be predicted from multiple sequence profile information alone.Alignments were created for a set of remotely related pairs of proteins using five different test methods. Structural alignments were used to assess the quality of the alignments and the aligned positions were scored using information from the observed frequencies of amino acid residues in sequence profiles pre-generated for each template structure. High-scoring regions of these profile-derived alignment scores were a good predictor of reliably aligned regions.These profile-derived alignment scores are easy to obtain and are applicable to any alignment method. They can be used to detect those regions of alignments that are reliably aligned and to help predict the quality of an alignment. For those residues within secondary structure elements, the regions predicted as reliably aligned agreed with the structural alignments for between 92% and 97.4% of the residues. In loop regions just under 92% of the residues predicted to be reliable agreed with the structural alignments. The percentage of residues predicted as reliable ranged from 32.1% for helix residues to 52.8% for strand residues.This information could also be used to help predict conserved binding sites from sequence alignments. Residues in the template that were identified as binding sites, that aligned to an identical amino acid residue and where the sequence alignment agreed with the structural alignment were in highly conserved, high scoring regions over 80% of the time. This suggests that many binding sites that are present in both target and template sequences are in sequence-conserved regions and that there is the possibility of translating reliability to binding site prediction.     

Rethinking historical controls

Inference from traditional historical controls, i.e. comparing a new treatment in a current series of patients with an old treatment in a previous series of patients, may be subject to a strong selection bias. To avoid this bias, Baker and Lindeman (1994) proposed the paired availability design. By applying this methodology to estimate the effect of epidural analgesia on the probability of Cesarean section, we made two important contributions with the current study. First, we generalized the methodology to include different types of availability and multiple time periods. Second, we investigated how well the paired availability design reduced selection bias by comparing results to those from a meta-analysis of randomized trials and a multivariate analysis of concurrent controls. The confidence interval from the paired availability approach differed considerably from that of the multivariate analysis of concurrent controls but was similar to that from the meta-analysis of randomized trials. Because we believe the multivariate analysis of concurrent controls omitted an important predictor and the meta-analysis of randomized trials was the gold standard for inference, we concluded that the paired availability design did, in fact, reduce selection bias.     

假体隆胸患者手术前后生命质量和自尊的评估

目的:通过对接受假体法隆胸患者的手术前后的生命质量和自尊水平进行主观的评价,得到真实、可靠的手术效果评价结果,最终提高隆胸手术患者的满意度。方法:选取接受假体法隆胸术患者共60例,在手术之前、术后6个月使用SF-36生命质量量表和Rosenberg自尊量表进行生命质量状况和自尊状况的测量评估,并和常模进行比较。结果:接受假体法隆胸患者术前SF-36生命质量量表中社会功能(SF)和精神健康(MH)两项得分明显低于常模(P0.01);术后6个月量表中社会功能(SF)和精神健康(MH)两项水平有显著改善(P0.01);Rosenberg自尊量表显示患者术后6个月的自尊水平较术前有明显的改善(P0.001)。结论:假体法隆胸手术能使患者的生命质量得到一定程度的改善,隆胸手术对患者的自尊水平有积极的显著的影响。