Short‐term forecasting of industrial electricity consumption in Brazil

This paper presents short‐term forecasting methods applied to electricity consumption in Brazil. The focus is on comparing the results obtained after using two distinct approaches: dynamic non‐linear models and econometric models. The first method, that we propose, is based on structural statistical models for multiple time series analysis and forecasting. It involves non‐observable components of locally linear trends for each individual series and a shared multiplicative seasonal component described by dynamic harmonics. The second method, adopted by the electricity power utilities in Brazil, consists of extrapolation of the past data and is based on statistical relations of simple or multiple regression type. To illustrate the proposed methodology, a numerical application is considered with real data. The data represents the monthly industrial electricity consumption in Brazil from the three main power utilities: Eletropaulo, Cemig and Light, situated at the major energy‐consuming states, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, respectively, in the Brazilian Southeast region. The chosen time period, January 1990 to September 1994, corresponds to an economically unstable period just before the beginning of the Brazilian Privatization Program. Implementation of the algorithms considered in this work was made via the statistical software S‐PLUS. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Protecting communities in research: current guidelines and limits of extrapolation.

As genetic research increasingly focuses on communities, there have been calls for extending research protections to them. We critically examine guidelines developed to protect aboriginal communities and consider their applicability to other communities. These guidelines are based on a model of researcher-community partnership and span the phases of a research project, from protocol development to publication. The complete list of 23 protections may apply to those few non-aboriginal communities, such as the Amish, that are highly cohesive. Although some protections may be applicable to less-cohesive communities, such as Ashkenazi Jews, analysis suggests substantial problems in extending these guidelines in toto beyond the aboriginal communities for which they were developed.     

Anticomplementary fraction from the poisonous secretion of the paratoid gland of the toad (Bufo marinus paracnemis Lutz)

Summary Fractionation of the poisonous secretion of the toadBufo marinus paracnemis Lutz, by dialysis and chromatography on QAE-Sephadex, led to the isolation of a fraction which was adsorbed to the ion exchanger. This fraction, when incubated with human serum, yielded an anticomplementary effect that was evaluated by measuring the kinetics of lytic activity on sensitized sheep red cells (classical pathway) and unsensitized rabbit cells (alternative pathway).We are very much indebted to Dr Lewis J. Greene for valuable discussions. Thanks are due to Dr Antonio C. Nero and Miss Ester G. Silva for their cooperation. This work was supported in part by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP).     

Variance estimation for multivariate dynamic linear models

The problem of estimating unknown observational variances in multivariate dynamic linear models is considered. Conjugate procedures are possible for univariate models and also for special very restrictive common components models but they are not generally applicable. However, for clarity of operation and in order to avoid numerical integration, it is desirable to have conjugacy or approximate conjugacy. Such an approximate procedure is proposed based upon a simple analytic approximation. It is exact for the sub-class of conjugate models and improves on a previous procedure based upon the Robust filter.     

Anticomplementary fraction from the poisonous secretion of the paratoid gland of the toad (Bufo marinus paracnemis Lutz)

Fractionation of the poisonous secretion of the toad Bufo marinus paracnemis Lutz, by dialysis and chromatography on QAE-Sephadex, led to the isolation of a fraction which was adsorbed to the ion exchanger. This fraction, when incubated with human serum, yielded an anticomplementary effect that was evaluated by measuring the kinetics of lytic activity on sensitized sheep red cells (classical pathway) and unsensitized rabbit cells (alternative pathway).     

Localization of gene for human p53 tumour antigen to band 17p13

Recently the gene for the cellular tumour antigen p53, a phosphoprotein found in increased concentration in a variety of human cells, had been mapped to region 17q22 by in situ hybridization techniques and has been shown to translocate to the chromosome carrying the translocation [t(15; 17)] associated with acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL). Based on this finding it has been postulated that this gene has a role in the pathogenesis of APL. Here we present evidence that the gene for p53 is not located on the long arm of chromosome 17, but maps to band 17p13. We therefore suggest that this gene is not directly involved in the chromosome translocation observed in APL.