Eukaryotic evolution, changes and challenges

The idea that some eukaryotes primitively lacked mitochondria and were true intermediates in the prokaryote-to-eukaryote transition was an exciting prospect. It spawned major advances in understanding anaerobic and parasitic eukaryotes and those with previously overlooked mitochondria. But the evolutionary gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes is now deeper, and the nature of the host that acquired the mitochondrion more obscure, than ever before.     

Error rates in quadratic discrimination with constraints on the covariance matrices

In multivariate discrimination of several normal populations, the optimal classification procedure is based on quadratic discriminant functions. We compare expected error rates of the quadratic classification procedure if the covariance matrices are estimated under the following four models: (i) arbitrary covariance matrices, (ii) common principal components, (iii) proportional covariance matrices, and (iv) identical covariance matrices. Using Monte Carlo simulation to estimate expected error rates, we study the performance of the four discrimination procedures for five different parameter setups corresponding to standard situations that have been used in the literature. The procedures are examined for sample sizes ranging from 10 to 60, and for two to four groups. Our results quantify the extent to which a parsimonious method reduces error rates, and demonstrate that choosing a simple method of discrimination is often beneficial even if the underlying model assumptions are wrong.The authors wish to thank the editor and three referees for their helpful comments on the first draft of this article. M. J. Schmid supported by grants no. 2.724-0.85 and 2.038-0.86 of the Swiss National Science Foundation.     

一种新数值工具在车辆气动声学开发中的应用

为了优化车辆开发过程的有效性,数值气动声学分析法的实施和应用对汽车制造商来说变得越来越重要。提出了一种结合延迟分离涡流模拟和基于Lighthill方程及声学扰动方程的有限元模型混合数值工具,应用OpenFOAM和Actran软件实现了基于声学有限元法的近场声源区提取及声学压力脉动计算,并尝试应用于车顶扰流板及后视镜区域的气动噪声计算及分析。在兰博基尼Urus车型上,研究了不同车顶扰流板设计的气动声学行为,将仿真结果与斯图加特大学气动声学全尺寸风洞的实验结果进行比较,发现了令人信服的相关性。此外,探讨了扰流板上的主要噪声产生机制,研究了汽车表面压力波动水平随几何形状改变的变化情况。