Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans

Despite decades of research, the roles of climate and humans in driving the dramatic extinctions of large-bodied mammals during the Late Quaternary period remain contentious. Here we use ancient DNA, species distribution models and the human fossil record to elucidate how climate and humans shaped the demographic history of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison and musk ox. We show that climate has been a major driver of population change over the past 50,000 years. However, each species responds differently to the effects of climatic shifts, habitat redistribution and human encroachment. Although climate change alone can explain the extinction of some species, such as Eurasian musk ox and woolly rhinoceros, a combination of climatic and anthropogenic effects appears to be responsible for the extinction of others, including Eurasian steppe bison and wild horse. We find no genetic signature or any distinctive range dynamics distinguishing extinct from surviving species, emphasizing the challenges associated with predicting future responses of extant mammals to climate and human-mediated habitat change.     

Metagenomic analysis of a permafrost microbial community reveals a rapid response to thaw

Permafrost contains an estimated 1672?Pg carbon (C), an amount roughly equivalent to the total currently contained within land plants and the atmosphere. This reservoir of C is vulnerable to decomposition as rising global temperatures cause the permafrost to thaw. During thaw, trapped organic matter may become more accessible for microbial degradation and result in greenhouse gas emissions. Despite recent advances in the use of molecular tools to study permafrost microbial communities, their response to thaw remains unclear. Here we use deep metagenomic sequencing to determine the impact of thaw on microbial phylogenetic and functional genes, and relate these data to measurements of methane emissions. Metagenomics, the direct sequencing of DNA from the environment, allows the examination of whole biochemical pathways and associated processes, as opposed to individual pieces of the metabolic puzzle. Our metagenome analyses reveal that during transition from a frozen to a thawed state there are rapid shifts in many microbial, phylogenetic and functional gene abundances and pathways. After one week of incubation at 5?°C, permafrost metagenomes converge to be more similar to each other than while they are frozen. We find that multiple genes involved in cycling of C and nitrogen shift rapidly during thaw. We also construct the first draft genome from a complex soil metagenome, which corresponds to a novel methanogen. Methane previously accumulated in permafrost is released during thaw and subsequently consumed by methanotrophic bacteria. Together these data point towards the importance of rapid cycling of methane and nitrogen in thawing permafrost.     

Evaluation of the predictive performance of biased regression estimators

Regression models are widely used in forecasting, either directly as prediction equations, or indirectly as the basis of other procedures. The predictive performance of a regression model can be adversely affected by both multicollinearity and high-leverage data points. Although biased estimation procedures have been proposed as an alternative to least squares, there has been little analysis of the predictive performance of the resulting equations. This paper discusses the predictive performance of various biased estimators, emphasizing the concept that the predictive region, as well as the strength of the multicollinearity, dictates the choice of appropriate coefficient estimators.     

Mathematical reasoning: induction, deduction and beyond

Mathematics used to be portrayed as a deductive science. Stemming from Polya (1954), however, is a philosophical movement which broadens the concept of mathematical reasoning to include inductive or quasi-empirical methods. Interest in inductive methods is a welcome turn from foundationalism toward a philosophy grounded in mathematical practice. Regrettably, though, the conception of mathematical reasoning embraced by quasi-empiricists is still too narrow to include the sort of thought-experiment which Mueller describes as traditional mathematical proof (Mueller, 1969, p. 295) and which Lakatos examines in Proofs and refutations (Lakatos, 1976). This paper extends the concept of mathematical reasoning along two further dimensions to accommodate thought-experiment.     

Daily volatility forecasts: reassessing the performance of GARCH models

Volatility plays a key role in asset and portfolio management and derivatives pricing. As such, accurate measures and good forecasts of volatility are crucial for the implementation and evaluation of asset and derivative pricing models in addition to trading and hedging strategies. However, whilst GARCH models are able to capture the observed clustering effect in asset price volatility in‐sample, they appear to provide relatively poor out‐of‐sample forecasts. Recent research has suggested that this relative failure of GARCH models arises not from a failure of the model but a failure to specify correctly the ‘true volatility’ measure against which forecasting performance is measured. It is argued that the standard approach of using ex post daily squared returns as the measure of ‘true volatility’ includes a large noisy component. An alternative measure for ‘true volatility’ has therefore been suggested, based upon the cumulative squared returns from intra‐day data. This paper implements that technique and reports that, in a dataset of 17 daily exchange rate series, the GARCH model outperforms smoothing and moving average techniques which have been previously identified as providing superior volatility forecasts. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

使蛋白质特性和结构散发光芒的三重奖诺贝尔化学奖纵横光谱

继基因革命而来的时髦新词是蛋白质学(PRO-TEOMICS)——研究从活细胞产生的蛋白质的多样性的学说。今年的诺贝尔化学奖颁发给三位研究人员——他们研制出了用于分析蛋白质的二项关键工具。     

Disassociation of oogonia formation from oospore production inPhytophthora cactorum by sterols with varying side chain lengths

Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences - A series of 20(R)-n-alkylpregn-5-en-3β-ols with 0 to 9 (but not with 12) C-atoms in the alkyl group induced formation of oogonia inPhytophthora cactorum....