Isoprenaline, modifications of the turnover of ATP in the perfused rat heart]

5 hrs after a single sub-cutaneous injection of the drug in a dose of 5 mg/kg, the ATP concentration was reduced by 15%, the incorporation of 14C adenine was augmented by 20% and the turnover of ATP was accelerated: the reduction of specific radioactivity attained 16%, 75 mn after the period of marquage, instead of 7% in the control hearts. When the drug was added to the perfusion fluid, there was no supplementary reduction of the ATP concentration and the action on the nucleotide turnover only existed if the ATP level was reduced by a pretreatment: the reduction of specific radioactivity then attained 24% after 75 min. of perfusion.     

A mutation altering the function of a carbohydrate binding protein blocks cell-cell cohesion in developing Dictyostelium discoideum.

In Dictyostelium discoideum, carbohydrate binding proteins (CBPs) or lectins have been implicated in the molecular basis of cellular cohesion. To determine the role of these CBPs, we have attempted to isolate structural gene mutants in which the CBPs have a defective affinity for carbohydrate ligands. We now report the isolation of a spontaneous, cross-reacting material (CRM) mutant which is non-cohesive and fails to develop. The mutant seems to have a defect in the structural gene for one of the two developmentally regulated carbohydrate binding proteins (CBP-26), which renders it unable to bind to galactose-containing ligands. The fact that wild-type cells interact with the mutant and carry it through development strongly supports a model of cell-cell interaction in which cohesion is mediated by complementary molecules.     

Inhibition of monoamine oxidase by 3-amino-2-oxazolidinone and 2-hydroxy-ethylhydrazine

Zusammenfassung Die MAO-hemmende Aktivität von 3-Amino-2-Oxazolidinon und von 2-Hydroxy-Äthylhydrazin wird beschrieben.     

小角度掠射X-Ray Diffraction用于离子注入后金属材料的物相鉴定

用小角度掠射 Ｘ 光法对工业纯铝，４５＃ 钢等材料表面经离子注入改性后的表层物质进行了物相分析，这一方法可以准确确定材料表层厚度为几十 ｎｍ 时的物相结构 ，从而为确立材料表层改性的机制提供了较为可靠的依据． 对比实验表明，采用小角度掠射 Ｘ 光衍射法比常规衍射仪法更加突出了表层物质对衍射谱的贡献，这为表面物理的研究提供了一种有效的方法．     

Book Reviews

Systemic Practice and Action Research -     

Analyzing Macroeconomic Forecastability

This paper estimates, using stochastic simulation and a multi‐country macroeconometric model, the fraction of the forecast error variance of output changes and the fraction of the forecast error variance of inflation that are due to unpredictable asset price changes. The results suggest that between about 25% and 37% of the forecast error variance of output growth over eight quarters is due to asset price changes and between about 33% and 60% of the forecast error variance of inflation over eight quarters is due to asset price changes. These estimates provide limits to the accuracy that can be expected from macroeconomic forecasting. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information content of DSGE forecasts

This paper examines the question whether information is contained in forecasts from dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models beyond that contained in lagged values, which are extensively used in the models. Four sets of forecasts are examined. The results are encouraging for DSGE forecasts of real GDP. The results suggest that there is information in the DSGE forecasts not contained in forecasts based only on lagged values, and that there is no information in the lagged‐value forecasts not contained in the DSGE forecasts. The opposite is true for forecasts of the GDP deflator.     

The genome of the green anole lizard and a comparative analysis with birds and mammals

The evolution of the amniotic egg was one of the great evolutionary innovations in the history of life, freeing vertebrates from an obligatory connection to water and thus permitting the conquest of terrestrial environments. Among amniotes, genome sequences are available for mammals and birds, but not for non-avian reptiles. Here we report the genome sequence of the North American green anole lizard, Anolis carolinensis. We find that A. carolinensis microchromosomes are highly syntenic with chicken microchromosomes, yet do not exhibit the high GC and low repeat content that are characteristic of avian microchromosomes. Also, A. carolinensis mobile elements are very young and diverse-more so than in any other sequenced amniote genome. The GC content of this lizard genome is also unusual in its homogeneity, unlike the regionally variable GC content found in mammals and birds. We describe and assign sequence to the previously unknown A. carolinensis X chromosome. Comparative gene analysis shows that amniote egg proteins have evolved significantly more rapidly than other proteins. An anole phylogeny resolves basal branches to illuminate the history of their repeated adaptive radiations.     

Bayesian structure selection for vector autoregression model

A vector autoregression (VAR) model is powerful for analyzing economic data as it can be used to simultaneously handle multiple time series from different sources. However, in the VAR model, we need to address the problem of substantial coefficient dimensionality, which would cause some computational problems for coefficient inference. To reduce the dimensionality, one could take model structures into account based on prior knowledge. In this paper, group structures of the coefficient matrices are considered. Because of the different types of VAR structures, corresponding Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms are proposed to generate posterior samples for performing inference of the structure selection. Simulation studies and a real example are used to demonstrate the performances of the proposed Bayesian approaches.