Estimating daily seasonality in foreign exchange rate changes

Combining time- and frequency-domain analysis demonstrates considerable improvement in modelling seasonal patterns in daily exchange rate changes. A high-pass filter in the frequency domain is used, followed by the usual time-domain analysis with GARCH models, to estimate day-of-the-week effects in the spot returns on five exchanges against US dollars and the results are seen to compare favourably with those from a pure time-domain GARCH approach.     

Plasma glycoproteins of diabetic and normal Chinese hamsters

Summary Plasma hexosamine levels were elevated in lines of diabetic Chinese hamsters when compared to nondiabetics. Plasma protein bound hexoses,a ₂ macroglobulin and total lipoprotein levels were not significantly correlated with either animal line or levels of fasting blood glucose.Acknowledgments. For the support which made this project possible, we wish to thank the Michigan Heart Association and The Upjohn Co.     

The DNA sequence and biology of human chromosome 19

Chromosome 19 has the highest gene density of all human chromosomes, more than double the genome-wide average. The large clustered gene families, corresponding high G + C content, CpG islands and density of repetitive DNA indicate a chromosome rich in biological and evolutionary significance. Here we describe 55.8 million base pairs of highly accurate finished sequence representing 99.9% of the euchromatin portion of the chromosome. Manual curation of gene loci reveals 1,461 protein-coding genes and 321 pseudogenes. Among these are genes directly implicated in mendelian disorders, including familial hypercholesterolaemia and insulin-resistant diabetes. Nearly one-quarter of these genes belong to tandemly arranged families, encompassing more than 25% of the chromosome. Comparative analyses show a fascinating picture of conservation and divergence, revealing large blocks of gene orthology with rodents, scattered regions with more recent gene family expansions and deletions, and segments of coding and non-coding conservation with the distant fish species Takifugu.     

Lymphoproliferation disorder in mice explained by defects in Fas antigen that mediates apoptosis.

Fas antigen is a cell-surface protein that mediates apoptosis. It is expressed in various tissues including the thymus and has structural homology with a number of cell-surface receptors, including tumour necrosis factor receptor and nerve growth factor receptor. Mice carrying the lymphoproliferation (lpr) mutation have defects in the Fas antigen gene. The lpr mice develop lymphadenopathy and suffer from a systemic lupus erythematosus-like autoimmune disease, indicating an important role for Fas antigen in the negative selection of autoreactive T cells in the thymus.     

Loss of heterozygosity in three embryonal tumours suggests a common pathogenetic mechanism

Children with the Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome have a greatly increased potential for the specific development of the embryonal tumours hepatoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and Wilms' tumour. Data obtained with molecular probes suggest that the association between these disparate, rare tumour types reflects a common pathogenetic mechanism that entails the somatic development of homozygosity for a mutant allele at a locus on human chromosome 11.