Preferential hydrophobic interactions are responsible for a preference of D-amino acids in the aminoacylation of 5'-AMP with hydrophobic amino acids.

We have studied the chemistry of aminoacyl AMP to model reactions at the 3' terminus of aminoacyl tRNA for the purpose of understanding the origin of protein synthesis. The present studies relate to the D, L preference in the esterification of 5'-AMP. All N-acetyl amino acids we studied showed faster reaction of the D-isomer, with a generally decreasing preference for D-isomer as the hydrophobicity of the amino acid decreased. The beta-branched amino acids, Ile and Val, showed an extreme preference for D-isomer. Ac-Leu, the gamma-branched amino acid, showed a slightly low D/L ratio relative to its hydrophobicity. The molecular basis for these preferences for D-isomer is understandable in the light of our previous studies and seems to be due to preferential hydrophobic interaction of the D-isomer with adenine. The preference for hydrophobic D-amino acids can be decreased by addition of an organic solvent to the reaction medium. Conversely, peptidylation with Ac-PhePhe shows a preference for the LL isomer over the DD isomer.     

Some observations on the effect of Ro 7-1051 on Trypanosoma cruzi,particularly in cell culture

Summary The drug Ro 7-1051 showed a deleterious effect on the intracellular and extracellular forms of Trypanosoma cruzi represented by nuclear pyknosis, fragmentation and lysis of parasites and by its reduced susceptibility to infection.Acknowledgments. The authors are deeply thankful to Roche Products for supplying the drug and for valuable information. The authors are also grateful to Prof. Nelson Villa for criticism and to Miss edna Bertin for technical assistance     

Using the bootstrap to evaluate forecasting equations

The bootstrap, like the jack-knife, is a technique for estimating standard errors. The idea is to use Monte Carlo simulation, based on a non-parametric estimate of the underlying error distribution. The bootstrap will be applied to an econometric equation describing the demand for energy by industry, to determine multi-period forecasting error and choose among competing specifications. The delta method for estimating forecast errors turns out to be too optimistic by a factor of 2.     

Bayesian Analysis of Vector ARMA Models using Gibbs Sampling

We present a methodology for estimation, prediction, and model assessment of vector autoregressive moving-average (VARMA) models in the Bayesian framework using Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms. The sampling-based Bayesian framework for inference allows for the incorporation of parameter restrictions, such as stationarity restrictions or zero constraints, through appropriate prior specifications. It also facilitates extensive posterior and predictive analyses through the use of numerical summary statistics and graphical displays, such as box plots and density plots for estimated parameters. We present a method for computationally feasible evaluation of the joint posterior density of the model parameters using the exact likelihood function, and discuss the use of backcasting to approximate the exact likelihood function in certain cases. We also show how to incorporate indicator variables as additional parameters for use in coefficient selection. The sampling is facilitated through a Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. Graphical techniques based on predictive distributions are used for informal model assessment. The methods are illustrated using two data sets from business and economics. The first example consists of quarterly fixed investment, disposable income, and consumption rates for West Germany, which are known to have correlation and feedback relationships between series. The second example consists of monthly revenue data from seven different geographic areas of IBM. The revenue data exhibit seasonality, strong inter-regional dependence, and feedback relationships between certain regions.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于频响函数的结构惯性参数识别及应用

为了快速、准确地测量某动力总成的结构惯性参数以进行新产品开发设计,根据频响函数曲线的质量线理论、刚体动力学原理,本文推导了基于频响函数识别结构惯性参数的基本理论。然后设置验证试验,通过试验验证了该理论的正确性、测量系统的可靠性、准确性,并标定了试验误差。最后,应用该系统成功测取了某摩托车动力总成的惯性参数,为整车优化配置设计提供了必不可少的参数。试验结果表明:该法简便快捷,计算精度完全可以满足工程设计应用的要求,特别适用于复杂、不规则结构。     

On induced fragmentation of ovarian oocytes

Summary Fragmentation of oocytes was induced in the ovary, via ovulation suppression, by administration of dehydro-epiandrosterone acetate (DHA-Ac) to mature cycling rats. The maximal fragmentation ratio, 15.0±3.2%, was obtained by 10 mg/100 g b.wt/day for 7-day administration of DHA-Ac. The relationship of fragmentation to the first stage of meiosis is also discussed.Acknowledgments. The author would like to thank Professor T. Matsuda in the Department of Anatomy I for his valuable advices and Proff. E. Nishida and K. Akasofu in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kanazawa University, for instructive suggestions and for kindly supplying DHA-Ac.     

The use of growth curves in forecasting market development—a review and appraisal

The growth curves suitable for forecasting market development are identified and described. The underlying theoretical basis, if any, for their use is examined, and published examples of their applications are given. Doubt is cast on the value of long-term forecasts derived from growth curves applied to markets for consumables. The problems of choice between competing curves are demonstrated by means of some examples. The requirements that a growth curve should meet in order to be an appropriate forecasting tool are identified and illustrated. Many of the published examples of growth curve use are shown to be vulnerable to criticism under one or more of these criteria.     

Prediction intervals for growth curve forecasts

Since growth curves are often used to produce medium- to long-term forecasts for planning purposes, it is obviously of value to be able to associate an interval with the forecast trend. The problems in producing prediction intervals are well described by Chatfield. The additional problems in this context are the intrinsic non-linearity of the estimation procedure and the requirement for a prediction region rather than a single interval. The approaches considered are a Taylor expansion of the variance of the forecast values, an examination of the joint density of the parameter estimates, and bootstrapping. The performance of the resultant intervals is examined using simulated data sets. Prediction intervals for real data are produced to demonstrate their practical value.     

中外商业方法专利保护之比较研究

对中外商业方法专利保护的制度与实践进行了积极探索和研究。介绍了商业方法及商业方法专利概念的不同规定,并提出了自己的看法和见解;分析美日欧商业方法专利的保护状况、特点和贡献,对我国商业方法专利保护的现状及存在的问题进行了剖析;最后,对我国在商业方法专利保护方面所面临的挑战提出了笔者的应对策略。     

A comparative arima analysis of the 111 series of the makridakis competition

The 111 series of the Makridakis competition are used to address a number of questions pertaining to use of the Box–Jenkins technique. The ARIMA models developed are compared to the ARIMA models developed independently by Andersen for the Makridakis competition. The time required to perform the analysis for each series is discussed in terms of model complexity. Forecast accuracy, measured as the MAPE for the one step ahead forecast, is discussed for different series lengths.     

Les tests microbiologiques pour la détermination des vitamines

Summary The growth factors for microorganisms are nothing else than the vitamines known in animal physiology. Some microorganisms, like animals, have lost the possibility of synthetising these factors, which must be added to the culture medium. The action of the vitamine is quantitative and specific. These properties enable the auxo-heterotrophic microorganism, having lost the possibility of synthesis for a determined vitamine, to be used for a quantitative determination of this factor. The Phycomyces test for thiamine (vitamine B₁) and its different practical applications are discussed.     

Phytotoxins as tools in breeding and selection of disease-resistant plants

Conventional plant breeding for resistance to pathogens, although successful, is in many cases still too slow to keep pace with pathogen adaptation, and suffers from the lack of genetic variability in cultivated varieties. Phytotoxins, because of their role in disease development, have been proposed as convenient markers for early screening of resistant genotypes and as selective agents for in vitro selection. The present review summarizes, firstly, the evidence for a genetic correlation between tolerance to toxins and resistance to pathogens, with particular reference to host-selective toxins (HST) and factors affecting early screening. There follows a discussion of results obtained from the use of phytotoxins for in vitro selection of resistant plants. The conclusion is drawn that this practice, while potentially useful in the case of HST, leads to contradictory results when ill-defined toxins or culture filtrates are used. Finally, prospects for future research are adumbrated.     

A comparison of temperature density forecasts from GARCH and atmospheric models

Density forecasts for weather variables are useful for the many industries exposed to weather risk. Weather ensemble predictions are generated from atmospheric models and consist of multiple future scenarios for a weather variable. The distribution of the scenarios can be used as a density forecast, which is needed for pricing weather derivatives. We consider one to 10‐day‐ahead density forecasts provided by temperature ensemble predictions. More specifically, we evaluate forecasts of the mean and quantiles of the density. The mean of the ensemble scenarios is the most accurate forecast for the mean of the density. We use quantile regression to debias the quantiles of the distribution of the ensemble scenarios. The resultant quantile forecasts compare favourably with those from a GARCH model. These results indicate the strong potential for the use of ensemble prediction in temperature density forecasting. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

美国登月火箭项目进展

研究美国登月火箭的项目管理有助于我国探月工程的规划。2004年美国公布重返月球计划。为实现这一目标,美国国家航空航天局决定以航天飞机推进系统为基础研制新型运载火箭。新火箭于2006年被命名为“战神”,包括“战神”-1乘员运载火箭和“战神”-5货物运载火箭两种型号。目前,“战神”-1火箭已完成系统需求评审,进入设计评审阶段。火箭第一级、上面级、上面级发动机以及电子设备的研制合同都已于2007年授出。预计2009年5月进行首次试验飞行,2015年3月进行首次载人飞行。而“战神”-5火箭还处于早期研究阶段。由于预算调整和航天项目的复杂性,“战神”火箭的研制已经有所拖延。虽然大型航天集团和国家航空航天局努力争取更多预算,但“战神”火箭未来的研制不排除进一步拖延的可能。     

Evidence of long memory in short‐term interest rates

The issues of non‐stationarity and long memory of real interest rates are examined here. Autoregressive models allowing short‐term mean reversion are compared with fractional integration models in terms of their ability to explain the behaviour of the data and to forecast out‐of‐sample. The data used are weekly observations of 3‐month Eurodeposit rates for 10 countries, adjusted for inflation, for 14 years. Following Brenner, Harjes and Kroner, the volatility of these rates is shown to both exhibit GARCH effects and depend on the level of interest rates. Although relatively little support is found for the hypothesis of mean reversion, evidence of long memory in interest rate changes is found for seven countries. The out‐of‐sample forecasting performance for a year ahead of the fractional integrated models was significantly better than a no change. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Molecular and Cellular Basis of Regeneration and Tissue Repair

The Xenopus tadpole is a favourable organism for regeneration research because it is suitable for a wide range of micromanipulative procedures and for a wide range of transgenic methods. Combination of these techniques enables genes to be activated or inhibited at specific times and in specific tissue types to a much higher degree than in any other organism capable of regeneration. Regenerating systems include the tail, the limb buds and the lens. The study of tail regeneration has shown that each tissue type supplies the cells for its own replacement: there is no detectable de-differentiation or metaplasia. Signalling systems needed for regeneration include the BMP and Notch signalling pathways, and perhaps also the Wnt and FGF pathways. The limb buds will regenerate completely at early stages, but not once they are fully differentiated. This provides a good opportunity to study the loss of regenerative ability using transgenic methods.     

Severity Prediction of Traffic Accident Using an Artificial Neural Network

In this paper, an artificial neural network (ANN) was used to predict the injury severity of traffic accidents based on 5973 traffic accident records occurred in Abu Dhabi over a 6‐year period (from 2008 to 2013). For each accident record, 48 different attributes had been collected at the time of the accident. After data preprocessing, the data were reduced to 16 attributes and four injury severity classes. In this study, WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) data‐mining software was used to build the ANN classifier. The traffic accident data were used to build two classifiers in two different ways. The whole data set were used for training and validating the first classifier (training set), while 90% of the data were used for training the second classifier and the remaining 10% were used for testing it (testing set). The experimental results revealed that the developed ANN classifiers can predict accident severity with reasonable accuracy. The overall model prediction performance for the training and testing data were 81.6% and 74.6%, respectively. To improve the prediction accuracy of the ANN classifier, traffic accident data were split into three clusters using a k‐means algorithm. The results after clustering revealed significant improvement in the prediction accuracy of the ANN classifier, especially for the training dataset. In this work, and in order to validate the performance of the ANN model, an ordered probit model was also used as a comparative benchmark. The dependent variable (i.e. degree of injury) was transformed from ordinal to numerical (1, 2, 3, 4) for (minor, moderate, sever, death). The R tool was used to perform an ordered probit. For each accident, the ordered probit model showed how likely this accident would result in each class (minor, moderate, severe, death). The accuracy of 59.5% obtained from the ordered probit model was clearly less than the ANN accuracy value of 74.6%. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An improved method of transplantation on chicken chorioallantoic membrane (CAM)

Summary An improved method for grafting on the chicken CAM is described and compared with other CAM grafting methods.The author is very grateful to Prof. L. Vakaet, RUCA Antwerpen, to Dr and Mrs M. Mareel, RUG Gent, for their valuable suggestions and to Mrs S. De Wolf-Van Rompaey for her excellent technical assistance. The author is also indebted to Mr F. De Bruyn for making the drawing.     

Plasma prostaglandin levels in fed and starved lean,normal and obese women

Summary The plasma obtained from fed and starved lean, normal and obese women was estimated, by a radio-immunoassay method, for prostaglandins, owing to their implication in the regulation of adipose tissue lipolysis and the development of obesity. No significant differences were found due to nutritional status or body-build. However, a significantly higher plasma concentration of prostaglandins of the E-type than of the F-type, was found consistently. The very low levels of prostaglandins observed (a range of 0.10–0.15 ng ml^–1 for E-type and a range of 0.05–0.07 ng ml^–1 for the F-type) may be due, in part, to the activity of a plasmatic prostaglandin metabolizing system.Acknowledgments. The authors are grateful to Dr D.C. Williams for his support and encouragement and to the Upjohn Company for the generous gift of standard prostaglandins.     

Dietary immunostimulation: Interaction with BCG and LPS

Summary The action of BCG and LPS mR595 used in conjunction with a formula-defined diet is dependent on the administration timing and resembles that of interacting adjuvants affecting different elements of the immune system.Acknowledgments. This work was made possible through a grant from the Medical Research Council of Canada. The authors are grateful to Bristol Myers Co. for providing the FDD, to Drs G. Bounous and G. Fisher for their interest and helpful comments, to Mrs S. Bachand for her technical assistance and to Mr P. Charland for taking care of the animals.