The genomic basis of adaptive evolution in threespine sticklebacks

Marine stickleback fish have colonized and adapted to thousands of streams and lakes formed since the last ice age, providing an exceptional opportunity to characterize genomic mechanisms underlying repeated ecological adaptation in nature. Here we develop a high-quality reference genome assembly for threespine sticklebacks. By sequencing the genomes of twenty additional individuals from a global set of marine and freshwater populations, we identify a genome-wide set of loci that are consistently associated with marine-freshwater divergence. Our results indicate that reuse of globally shared standing genetic variation, including chromosomal inversions, has an important role in repeated evolution of distinct marine and freshwater sticklebacks, and in the maintenance of divergent ecotypes during early stages of reproductive isolation. Both coding and regulatory changes occur in the set of loci underlying marine-freshwater evolution, but regulatory changes appear to predominate in this well known example of repeated adaptive evolution in nature.     

Migration in later life: evidence from the British Household Panel Study

This article uses data from the British Household Panel Study over the period 1991 - 2007 to examine the factors associated with residential mobility among people aged 50 and over. In line with earlier research, the likelihood of migrating, that is, changing address, is found to vary according to the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the older person. Those in late middle age (50-59) and the oldest-old (90 and over) were most likely to move. Migration was also strongly associated with changes in partnership, health and economic status during the last 12 months, highlighting the importance of seeing migration within a life course context with certain life course events such as divorce, widowhood or retirement being important triggers for prompting a move. As divorce and remarriage become more common in later life, 'relationship driven migration' is likely to become more important, adding a new category to the classical typology of later life migration.     

The changing demography of mid-life, from the 1980s to the 2000s

This article examines changes between 1984 and 2007 in the demographic and socio-economic circumstances of British men and women in mid-life. Changing living arrangements in mid-life reflect historical changes in the occurrence and timing of life events such as marriage and parenthood, as well as increased longevity. In order to place mid-life in this wider demographic context, the article first reviews changes over time in kin availability across the adult life course using the British Household Panel Survey (2001) and Understanding Society (2009). The article goes on to use data from the General Household Survey (1984-2007) to document shifts over time in living arrangements for those aged 20- 79. In the final part of the article we focus specifically on those aged between 45 and 64 and examine how their characteristics in terms of marital status, educational attainment, activity status and housing tenure have changed over the past quarter century.     

Initial sequencing and comparative analysis of the mouse genome

The sequence of the mouse genome is a key informational tool for understanding the contents of the human genome and a key experimental tool for biomedical research. Here, we report the results of an international collaboration to produce a high-quality draft sequence of the mouse genome. We also present an initial comparative analysis of the mouse and human genomes, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the two sequences. We discuss topics including the analysis of the evolutionary forces shaping the size, structure and sequence of the genomes; the conservation of large-scale synteny across most of the genomes; the much lower extent of sequence orthology covering less than half of the genomes; the proportions of the genomes under selection; the number of protein-coding genes; the expansion of gene families related to reproduction and immunity; the evolution of proteins; and the identification of intraspecies polymorphism.     

Circulating hemagglutinins of New Zealand black strain mice immunized with sheep erythrocytes

Zusammenfassung Es wird gezeigt, dass der Gehalt an Serumantikörpern nach Immunisation mit Schaferythrozyten in jungen NZB-Mäusen im Vergleich zu BALB/c-Stämmen grösser ist. Diese Unterschiede wurden nach der zweiten und dritten Antigeninjektion geringer. Bei alten Coombs-positiven NZB-Mäusen wird eine Verzögerung der Reaktion nach der ersten, jedoch eine normale Reaktionszeit nach der nun folgenden Injektion gefunden. Die Ergebnisse entsprechen den Resultaten mitJerne's Technik bei Reaktionsuntersuchungen antikörperbildender Zellen.     

Forecasting economic time series that require a power transformation: Case of state tax receipts

In this study, time series analysis is applied to the problem of forecasting state income tax receipts. The data series is of special interest since it exhibits a strong trend with a high multiplicative seasonal component. An appropriate model is identified by simultaneous estimation of the parameters of the power transformation and the ARMA model using the Schwarz (1978) Bayesian information criterion. The forecasting performance of the time series model obtained from this procedure is compared with alternative time series and regression models. The study illustrates how an information criterion can be employed for identifying time series models that require a power transformation, as exemplified by state tax receipts. It also establishes time series analysis as a viable technique for forecasting state tax receipts.